“Nightcrawler" ★★★ 1/2
A Review by Kevin Powers
Characters
like Lou Bloom don’t come along very often. Like Robert DeNiro’s Travis Bickle
in Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” he is a man alienated from society. He has big
aspirations and achieves his goals in misguided ways.
Jake
Gyllenhaal has been doing some fine acting these days. He has garnered much
praise for his work in last year’s “Prisoners” and the odd doppelganger
thriller in “Enemy,” released earlier this year. I have seen neither of those.
I now will.
As
Lou Bloom, Gyllenhaal has created a performance unlike many I’ve seen. Bloom, a
small-time thief, who mostly steals scrap metal from construction sites and
expensive bicycles in Venice Beach, comes off from the start as an eerie
oddball. He has a way of selling himself. Early in the film, he tries to get a
job at a scrap yard. He tells the owner that he believes in the idea that “if
you want to win the lottery, you have to have the money to buy a ticket.” In
director Dan Gilroy’s “Nightcrawler,” Gyllenhaal puts his money where his mouth
is and then some.
When
Lou happens upon a fiery crash on an L.A. freeway one night, he notices some
gentlemen, including Joe Loder (Bill Paxton), with an interesting job. They
arrive on the scene to shoot video footage for the local news. Lou is hooked.
He
buys a camera and a police scanner and starts going after the exclusive. When
he gets right up close to a crime victim with a gruesome gunshot wound, he
makes his first freelance sell. This is to KWLA, a low-rated news station,
whose nightly news director, Nina Romina (Rene Russo), is more-than-willing to
pony up some dough for a solid leading story.
He
is a loner, an outcast. He spends his time teaching himself everything online. He
methodically learns police codes and begins to weed out the good from the bad.
The good being crimes and accidents in the more middle-class areas, and the bad
being the crimes where crimes usually happen. He gets good. The money starts
rolling in.
He
hires an assistant for his new “company.” His name is Rick (unknown actor Riz
Ahmed in a stellar supporting role). He buys a new Dodge Challenger and races
it through the underbelly of Los Angeles in the dark and glorious night going
to uncomfortable and risky lengths to get his footage. Lou speaks of himself and
his worldview with grandeur. He is a master manipulator. He gets what he wants
in many more ways than one, no better evidenced that in several chilling,
darkly comic scenes with Russo.
Jake
Gyllenhaal has been a favorite actor of mine for a long time. He has done some
great stuff. We know him around here as the teenaged star of “October Sky”
(1999). In “Nightcrawler,” he is a man on a mission. His performance is
confident and direct as is his character. His body is thin, his hair is greasy,
and his eyes are wild.
Writer
and first-time director Dan Gilroy (best-known as a screenwriter) has crafted
an intense and suspenseful thriller. We find ourselves easily immersed in this
story as we watch a driven man do things we can’t imagine ourselves, or anyone,
doing. Gilroy constantly has us enthralled in what we’re seeing with a dark,
realistic tone. Thanks to cinematographer Robert Elswit, the dark Los Angeles
of this movie looks as raw and grainy as the footage Lou captures from the
wrecks and shootings and stabbings.
In
the end, I found myself questioning how many people actually do things like
this. Night crawlers like Lou Bloom must be in every major metropolitan area in
this country. Guys on the front line finding the sensationalism we so much
desire in our news. And I wonder to what lengths these people go. “Nightcrawler”
will certainly do that to you.
No comments:
Post a Comment