Night Call

Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) is an unemployed petty thieve in L.A. He encounters Joe Loder (Bill Paxton) who is filming a car crash. He decides to get into the business of freelance videography for the local news. He is unrestrained in his filming which is exactly what news director Nina Romina (Rene Russo) needs to raise her low ratings. Desperate Rick answers his ad to be his assistant. This is great acting from Gyllenhaal. His crazy eyes pull in the audience right away. In fact, it's shocking to see his gaunt figure. His mannerisms are really creepy. The story is driven by this great performance and the tension never lets up.

Jake scared me with his spooky eyeballs. End of review.

This film essentially tells the story of an ambitious and somewhat psychotic news video freelancer (played by Jake Gyllenhall) who will do anything, literally, to make his way in the world and be successful and a media editor (played by Rene Russo) who,in her own world of news casting, also has few if any scruples when it comes to her career and reputation. Put the two together and you get an escalating set of events in which the video freelancer goes to greater and greater extremes to film shocking scenes of crime, encouraged along by the media editor who is paying for his results.

What makes the film more interesting than just another action drama is the social commentary and the character studies. The main characters are very well crafted, believable, explained through back drop and excellently acted out. The parallels between them are also interesting to observe. Both pretty much without any care for the people around them and focused solely on personal gain. What the video guy will do to get his paycheck is shocking, but what the media editor will do to get her news reel is just as distasteful.

The social commentary is also sharp. The media is portrayed essentially as caring about nothing but a good story, even in fact if that story happens to be untrue. What matters is the narrative and the narrative has to fit the agenda of the media agency. By this measure all news is little more than propaganda. The video guy, despite his barbaric methods and behaviour, is also tolerated by those around him and the message, at least from the media editor and her team (acknowledging one dissenting voice in the film), is that it is OK to be cruel and to hurt others if it is in the pursuit of personal ambition. Both are valid observations and comments on today's society, whether we, the viewers, happen to agree with them or not.

The film also has a touch of originality which isn't easy to do these days when so many movies have already been made. Yes there are studies out there of psychos, yes there are films that vilify the media and there are films about morbid voyeurism and about the exploitation of victims of crime for personal gain. The originality comes from putting them all together. I couldn't really think of a parallel, although others might.

This is well worth watching. You may not ultimately enjoy the film, after all it isn't pleasant, but I am fairly sure you will remember it.

Once Jake Gyllenhaal signed on to do Nightcrawler I knew it would be a special film. The man has been producing nothing but gold lately and this is no different. Nightcrawler is an experience - it takes you on this journey through the grimy streets of LA, through the corrupt minds of media moguls, and everything is told through the eyes of seemingly charming slimeball reporter Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal).

Nightcrawler works on so many levels. The writing and direction is fantastic, which is especially impressive as it's the directorial debut by Dan Gilroy who takes on both duties. He had a clear vision of how he wanted to portray LA and the sleek, brooding yet slightly lackadaisical tone transfers perfectly onto the big screen. The acting is phenomenal - Gyllenhaal gives a performance that's the polar opposite from his character in Prisoners and he was on point for every second. He was the perfect casting choice to carry the movie.

The movie has a clear message on the media and how they abuse stories and reap the benefits regardless of who gets victimized. It's a message that has been told a million times before, but never quite like this. Nightcrawler throws you right into the gritty streets along with a hustling thief, Lou, who starts freelancing as a videographer of crime scenes and selling his footage to a news channel for money. We go along this journey with Lou and watch his transformation from being a sleazy but ambitious individual to becoming a manipulative, self-serving sociopath. Then you start to realize that he was like that all along. His charming charisma masked his true intentions, and this peek into his psyche is the most potent and disturbing aspect of the movie. It's a character study that encompasses an entire lifestyle, and told with enough elegance and wit to keep you on board the whole way.

There's a dark comedic tone present throughout. Lou's persistence and crass remarks to basically anyone he encounters provide some good laughs. He doesn't sugarcoat anything, he'll talk to anyone in order to get his way, and he has a sleazy smirk that never fails to get a reaction. Also Gyllenhaal's chemistry with Rene Russo (the news director) is palatable and their work dynamic becomes more of a gripping co-dependency as the movie progresses.

Nightcrawler is a must-watch for fans of cinema. It's a work of art from a directorial and writing standpoint, from an acting standpoint, and from a basic human nature standpoint. It really does a hell of a job at sucking you into this dark gloomy world to the point where you don't want to get out. It's intense, it's funny, it's thrilling, it's powerful, and most of all, it's real. Nightcrawler is simply sensational.

Jake Gyllenhaal is the nightcrawler. A nightcrawler is a worm. Bloom, the character played here, is a sociopath. His ambitions and fixations far outweigh common morality. Let's face it, his cohorts in the business aren't much better than he is, but they have a kind of code, and they don't participate in enhancing the crime. When Bloom moves an accident victim for the first time in order to get a better shot, he crosses the line and stays on the other side. He is willing to do anything to get his way and he is a master at monotonous monologue when he is confronted. It's as if he is reading from a book. I heard an interview recently with Gyllenhaal and he recited some of this stuff from memory with almost no emotion. This is a terrific performance by one of our really good actors. The way he is able to slide into every situation unscathed and maintain that sardonic grin is really nonpareil. This is about the voyeurism of the audience which demands this hateful kind of portrayal.