Screenpopp

I’ll be honest with you, when I heard there was a movie coming out called Nightcrawler, I thought a certain blue mutant was finally going to have his day in the sun. Then I watched the trailer and realized I was wrong. However, it still looked pretty interesting in a creepy sort of way so I figured I would check it out the first chance I got.

The movie follows an out of work, ambitious, morally ambiguous man named Louis (played by Jake Gyllenhal). He is looking for a job when he comes across an accident and sees a film crew descend upon the scene. He finds out that they get paid for this footage, so he sets out to be a “stringer”. He’s inexperienced and has pretty low tech equipment, but his willingness to go and do what others won’t gets his foot in the door. Pretty soon he has steady work, and he is seen as an asset to the woman in charge of the nightly news for a local station in L.A. She basically tells him the type of stories she wants (crime in suburban areas) and he goes out and finds it.  Along a homeless intern named Rick (played by Riz Ahmed) Louis makes an unconventional rise toward success.

Thestory, cinematography and acting were all pretty good. I particularly enjoyed the scenes that took place in the city at night, and there is a pretty intense and well done car chase scene near the end of the movie. Renee Russo and Bill Paxton have important parts in the movie and do a good job. In fact one of the scenes that stuck with me the most is a conversation Louis has Russo’s character in about what he wants from their relationship. He speaks to everyone very matter a factly and without any sense of tact. He is kind of like a much creepier version of Sheldon from the Big Bang Theroy. The relationship between Louis and Rick steals the show and is even oddly humorous at times.

At the end of the movie, I was left with a few questions. What was Louis doing up to this point in life? It’s not like he is someone who would just float along until he decides to get a job in his thirties. Maybe it’s more interesting to leave that unknown. Also, how did they get Jake Gyllenhal to look like that. I mean, I know he lost some weight for this role but there are scenes in the movie when he looks like a stylized comic strip version of himself. At times his eyes are unnaturally large, and he has a pencil thin, long mouth that seems to sit really low on his face… Weird, maybe the Benjamin Button’s digital crew was looking to do a little extra work.

Overall, I would recommend this movie. It’s gripping at times, Gyllenhal gives a pretty strong performance, and the visuals are good. It got me thinking about the voyeuristic nature of crime news, and if there is any responsibility on the viewers part to turn it off. I only gave it 3 out of five stars because although was good and raised some interesting questions it fell flat at times which meant it wasn’t quite strong enough to overcome the bad taste in your mouth from the central character basically being a sleazeball. If you are like me you will probably get something out of it, but you won’t clamour to see it again and again.

Reviewed by: Phillip Lane on March 19, 2015