One of the best thrillers of the year and one of the best performances.
Nightcrawler
Grade: A-
Director: Dan Gilroy (The Bourne Legacy)
Screenplay: Gilroy
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain), Rene Russo (Thor)
Rating: R
Runtime: 117 min.
by John DeSando
“If it bleeds, it leads.” TV news adage
There’s plenty of blood to be filmed and sold to a TV station by enterprising photographers in Nightcrawler. If they can get to the scene of the crime or accident earlier than other photojournalists, aka “nightcrawlers,” so much the better. Driven Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) learns how to get there early and how to sell the footage to a station.
Nightcrawler is an expert thriller about footage jockeys and the ethics of manipulating news. Lou bloom is inordinately ambitious, with prestige and money driving him further and further down the amoral rabbit hole. When he arrives early at a scene and moves the bloody body for better light, it’s clear he’s on his way to more and better crime as he ingratiates himself with TV news director Nina Romina (Rene Russo) and becomes a part of her station’s leading bloody news stories.
What little I have experienced on the TV news set of a local station is accurately depicted: the fast pace, quick decisions (what to leave out, what to leave in), and the integrity of the news itself. No question Lou’s footage is what the station needs to rise in the ratings, no question Nina needs to decide if she can pay his price, no question the ethical boundaries are uncertain. In all cases, the OCD Lou has figured the angles enough ahead of time to win the contract and evade the law. He already has answered his partner, Rick’s (Riz Ahmed), question, "Why aren't we at the rape in Vincent Park like everyone else?" (See the opening quote). Probably not enough blood.
The issue of ratings’ influence hangs about this movie with decisions about buying and showing controversial footage always present at sweep times. Add the legal ramifications and it’s quite a moral-ethical stew.
When Lou says, "I have to go home and do some accounting," he is rejecting an offer from a rival firm and confirming numbers and no people are his world. Although he can be a charmer, his vacant, unblinking stare and humorless speeches on business practices, learned from the Internet, are an early sign that he can be affectless and dangerous. Gyllenhaal gives the performance of a lifetime, and Nightcrawler is one of the year’s best thrillers.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
