The Movie Review: Nightcrawler

Rating: 4 Stars

Nightcrawler is a film that downright scares me.

It is not a horror film that makes you jump, it frightens my very being of the monster that eats us from the inside.

The human condition.

This movie was begging for an Oscar, an Academy Award, a People’s Choice Award, an MTV moon man, SOMETHING.

It did get nominated for Best Writing, and the writing was good, but the writing needed a Jake Gyllenhaal performance for the ages.

Gyllenhaal plays a quirky and seemingly high functioning autistic OCD “Louis Bloom”. I put that in quotations because by the time we learn his name I could’ve sworn he was making it up. He was a petty thief from the opening scene with a brash sense of negotiating deals with high school debate team skill.

His goal is to have a career. This is a concept I can root for. Bloom is our film’s protagonist and seems like he’s had a tough life so far, some success would put some happiness in my heart.

Bloom adapts to roaming the streets at night with a camera as an independent video news source recording suburban crime and catastrophes for the 6 AM news open.

Bloom’s persistence in getting the best shots hooks him up with the morning news director Nina Romina (Rene Russo) who becomes the second major character in the film notching a role of “news director in a precarious position”. This is a position Bloom expertly exploits, and where a wedge between audience and Bloom is beginning to be driven.

If you came into this movie to see an expert character arc, you will not be disappointed, but this is not the type of arc that leaves you smiling in the end.

I don’t want to spoil the plot details because they are essential to keeping the movie on your toes, but I will take liberties in discussing what makes the Bloom character so scary and fantastic.

Gyllenhaal creates a character in Bloom that, as the movie progresses into its blazing fast second half toward a near Tarantino conclusion, the audience is probably asking themselves at this point if we really want to see Bloom get the fairy tale ending we wanted at the beginning. Bloom has entered into a pursuit of happiness that is working at the cost of others. But those other characters, including Bloom’s fresh off the street assistant Rick, are not so morally compassed either.

Rick is the best example of the character who becomes the voice of reason. He, like Bloom, is desperate for the payday, but starts to notice he is crossing a moral line that makes him question his own moral divide.

Journalism is a business, it is what I study in college. It’s easy to see all the corruption that lies underneath its fabric, but Nightcrawler presents it in the scariest psychological manner I’ve ever seen it in. It’s not journalism itself that corrupts Bloom, but it is what journalism requires of Bloom combined with Bloom’s understanding of what makes journalism roll.

In my final thoughts I would argue Nightcrawler takes a few logic liberties that don’t ruin the movie, but did make me bat an eyebrow. Not enough to detract a 4 star performance from Gyllenhaal and company though.