Nightcrawler focuses on an opportunistic sociopath named Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal). Bloom is a low-level thief who is desperately searching for an employment opportunity that rewards him financially. That opportunity falls right into Bloom's lap as he's driving past a grisly accident scene on the Los Angeles freeway and sees a group of cameramen capturing the aftermath of the accident with the intent to sell the footage to a local news station for their early morning broadcast. Bloom is inspired about what he witnessed on the freeway and soon buys a camera and a police scanner for his car so he can enter the freelance video journalism business. Before long Bloom is able to establish a business relationship with the news director of the lowest-rated news station (Rene Russo) in LA, who gladly purchases Bloom's most graphic footage to try and get ahead in the ratings. After a few sales, Bloom hires an assistant (Riz Ahmed) and quickly becomes the most well-known "Nightcrawler" in LA thanks to his willingness to cross any ethical boundary to get footage and eliminate anyone that poses a threat to his exploitative video news empire.
Nightcrawler is a Hollywood thriller doesn't feel fake for even a second; which makes it especially unsettling to sit through. There are people just like Louis Bloom currently among us making a living off of filming fatal car accidents and murder scenes for a paycheck from news stations across the country. Even when Bloom's decisions become more rash and he goes to more extreme lengths to get the perfect shot for the news, it never loses its sense of authenticity and that is a big part of why Nightcrawler is such an unshakable and impactful piece of film-making.
The scenes between Bloom and Rene Russo's Nina are rooted even more in the truth than Bloom's scenes "Nightcrawling" around Los Angeles. At the end of their first meeting, Nina encourages Bloom to go out and capture more brutal work for the newscast by asking him to think of her newscast as " a screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut". Nina's sentiments are perfectly representative of how television news operates in the present day. The only news stories most people care about are gruesome events that end in at least one fatality, especially when they happen in affluent neighborhoods where brutal crime doesn't typically occur. Gilroy often uses a satirical tone to address the subject, but his message is very serious and monstrously affective. The comparisons to Sidney Lumet's 1976 classic Network are unavoidable, Gilroy has just updated that film's anti-media message for the digital age. Nightcrawler delivers such a scathing and accurate portrayal of the modern, sensationalist-driven news industry that it's almost nauseating to watch.
Underneath all the commentary on sensationalist journalism and capitalism, Nightcrawler is a character study about a man who is desperate to succeed in life by any means necessary. Jake Gyllenhaal is masterfully manipulative and downright creepy as Bloom. He rips through the film's long monologues with an endless amount of sleazy confidence and bravado. When he's selling the other film's characters on his agenda, you can't help but buy into the shit he's selling. Despite his psychotic tendencies and blatant disregard for human decency, Gyllenhaal grounds the character with a stunning level of humanity. No matter how fucked up Bloom's actions or motives are, you never find yourself truly hating the character. Gyllenhaal has quietly become one of the most reliably great actors in Hollywood over the past few years and his work here is certainly in the conversation alongside Donnie Darko and End of Watch for the best performance of his career thus far. Gyllenhaal's unhinged yet commanding performance really drives home the force of Nightcrawler's biting social commentary. Nightcrawler is a vastly important film that serves as a potent condemnation of modern news and the capitalist attitude that dominates the American business landscape.
4.5/5 Stars
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