Nightcrawler

Acting

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Louis “Lou” Bloom an aspiring “nightcrawler” who hunts down accidents and crime scenes for footage to sell to news stations. Gyllenhaal’s doll eyed expression has flashes of Donnie Darko in them but is made even creepier by the broad faced grin which rarely ever leaves his face. Gyllenhaal’s slicked back hair is also vastly different from his normally clean cut look. Gyllenhaal is captivating in this role and shows a level of intensity he had not previously exhibited. An early example of this intensity, which he maintains throughout the film, is the scene where he fails to catch a fire on film after speeding wildly and talking at the rate of a coke addict. We see this same intensity man when Gyllenhaal is able to talk about Mexican food while Nina asks him twice about blood on his shirt. Gyllenhaal is careful not to play this role over the top but maintains his credibility as an unsympathetic psychopath.

Rick Garcia, playing himself, does pretty well as a not too serious and overwhelmed intern who serves as a foil to Gyllenhaal. As the movie progresses and it becomes clear that Rick lack’s Gyllenhaal’s intensity he becomes an increasing source of frustration for Gyllenhaal and is not able to keep up with his insane pace. He is the rational and “normal” character in the face of Gyllenhaal’s insanity and while he acts the part well he doesn’t exactly distinguish himself as an actor.

Directing

Director Dan Gilroy makes great use of close-ups to focus on Gyllenhaal’s doll-eyed face and upper torso, insuring that Gyllenhaal’s acting is the focus of the movie which, given his acting ability in this performance, he should be. A very unique element of this movie is the insight Gilroy provides as to how a news team operates and manipulates the news. The camerawork done by Gyllenhaal’s character is a clever way for Gilroy to show how effective camerawork is, particularly in the scene where Gyllenhaal and Rick are filming the two murder suspects and we see their filming through both men’s camera lenses while the rest of our screen around their lens is blurred. We see this technique used again during the car chase scene in which Gyllenhaal and Rick pursue the police chase of the remaining murder suspect and much of the scene is shown through the lens of Rick’s camera. 

Another technique Gilroy uses is controlling the pacing of the film. The film begins as a very fast paced but a straightforward enough storyline that the audience can easily follow it. Gilroy later makes use of the audience’s adjustment to this fast pace by slowing things down in order to build suspense at key moments and make it even more effective (the most obvious example being when he and Rick are tailing the two murderers and this scene feels like it is lasting forever because of the contrast with the rest of the movie.)

Story

The story begins as an almost cliché depiction of cutthroat journalists but quickly evolves to show these journalists possess a new level of emotional detachment from their stories. This is made clear when Nina tells Gyllenhaal to “think of our newscast as a woman running bloody down the street with her throat cut.” A few times the limitations of this detachment are stretched, especially with the reporting of the home invasion, but ultimately we see that the manipulation of fear and lack of sympathy wins out as again and again Nina encourages her anchors to scare the public.

Another main theme of this film is the relentless pursuit of success. Gyllenhaal tells the audience that “why you pursue is as important as what you pursue” while also promoting the idea of hard work being the only way to attain success. This keeps the audience wondering whether the success of his business is really his motivation or if there is something else motivating him. His collection of his successful stories more resembles a mass murder keeping a display of trophies than a businessman or entrepreneur driven to succeed. We see the beginning of Gyllenhaal’s psychopathic tendencies when he turns down Paxton’s offer to run a second van and the chance to make more money while also bluntly telling him that he feels like attacking him (the kind of matter of fact observational speech that sounds like a serial killer.) He repeats this process when he meets with Nina whom he bluntly tells which of her physical features he likes as well as threatening her job in the same meeting.

There are also several pivotal moments that mark the exposure of Gyllenhaal’s true nature. The first of these Pivotal moments transpires when Gyllenhaal realizes that he can move a dead driver’s body to create a better shot. This leads him to become fully invested in his work as a nightcrawler and gives him the arrogance that brings about much of his frustration which pushes him over the edge when it comes to finding increasingly gory stories and competing with Paxton. While a few of the other journalists maintain their lack of sympathy for the death and violence in the world, we see this lack of emotion taken to another level with Gyllenhaal when he films Paxton being taken away in an ambulance and Gyllenhaal refers to his accident as “profit” and again when he enters the home where a murder has just taken place in order to film the crime scene victims and all.

Another pivotal moment comes during his negation with Nina in which he refuses to bargain for a lower price—a complete role reversal from the beginning of the film when it was the construction manager who refused to lower his price with Gyllenhaal.

The final pivotal point happens when Gyllenhaal allows Rick to be killed by the second murderer telling him he “cannot jeopardize the success of his company for the sake of an untrustworthy employee.” This scene screams Godfather’s “it’s not personal, just business” and reinforces how psychopathic not only Gyllenhaal is but also Nina who represents the media as a whole. “You’re just like Lou” is the true message of this film, telling the audience that what so obviously bothers us and we so easily recognize as wrong in an individual, Gyllenhaal, is also going on in the media where these same psychotic tendencies are harder for us to detect but are equally reprehensible.

Conclusion:

Grade: WRAP: 70%

Overall I thought the film was quite enjoyable. Gyllenhaal’s performance was easily the highlight of this film and without it I think this movie loses most of its entertainment. I found the themes in this film about journalistic manipulation to be presented in a unique and clever way as well as being a refreshing message from Hollywood. This movie could have been a little faster paced as towards the end the plot began to drag a little, but I’m equally glad Gilroy resisted the urge to have some ridiculous plot twist at the end which might have compromised the integrity of the story and Gyllenhaal’s character.