Nightcrawler (2014)

"If it bleeds, it leads."

If you've ever wondered why there are so many tragic and sensationalised stories on every TV news show and every newspaper headline, those five words up above are the simplest explanation. Good news doesn't get the ratings that violence and scandal do. That idea serves as the core concept for the recently released flick Nightcrawler, a brilliantly done neo-noir that takes a look at the more lurid parts of broadcast journalism. And if you want my opinion, it's a hell of a movie.

As the movie begins, we're introduced to Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), an unemployed petty thief selling stolen scrap metal for chump change in order to scrape together whatever cash he can. But steady work looks to be on the way for Louis one night when he passes a car accident on the highway. Among the police and EMTs is Joe Loder (Bill Paxton), who Louis notices filming the scene before calling a local TV news director to negotiate the sale of his footage. If legitimate businessmen won't hire him, Louis thinks to himself, then he'll just go into business for himself.

Pawning off a stolen bicycle for a camcorder and police scanner, Louis tries following Joe's lead but doesn't have much success initially.A lucky break soon presents itself, however, when he sells his footage of a dying carjacking victim to Nina Romina (Rene Russo), a news director whose channel is struggling in the ratings. Louis and Nina quickly form a business partnership that sees Louis getting more and more successful. So successful, in fact, that he's able to hire a assistant (Riz Ahmed) to help him out. But the need for better, more intense footage soon gets to Louis, and reckless driving isn't enough to get him there. Soon he's tampering with evidence and staging crime scenes in order to get more dramatic shots, a path that will take Louis down a very dark, morally grey road. 

Nightcrawler is not a particularly happy movie. It's a dark movie that has no problem following its lead character as he heads into some ethically questionable territory. Its critique of the salacious, overly sensationalist parts of journalism that puts every tragedy that befalls every well-to-do white suburban family at the forefront isn't anything that hasn't been pointed out in the past. But by putting us right in the thick of it and using its lead character as a lightning rod for it, Nightcrawler constructs itself in a way that makes it absolutely fascinating to watch and hard to take your eyes off of.

Writer/director Dan Gilroy doesn't really approach the material he's tackling with a lot of subtlety; I've read one review that compared Nightcrawler to someone taking Peter Finch's "I'm as mad as hell " monologue from Network and turning it into a feature-length movie. But that doesn't hurt the movie, as Gilroy still builds it into something special. I will say that I got the feeling while watching it that perhaps Gilroy might have studied a lot of Michael Mann and Brian De Palma movies while preparing to make Nightcrawler. His direction doesn't have quite the same artistic flair as Mann or De Palma's work (and I'd love to see how either of them would have tackled this one), but there's something about Nightcrawler that gives it a similar vibe. There's a certain grimy feeling to it, something inherently seedy, a grittiness that makes the gorgeous Los Angeles cityscapes we see feel more unsettling than anything else. It feels a lot like what Mann similarly did with the city in Collateral, or how De Palma framed Philadelphia in Blow Out. And that's actually not a bad thing at all.

Gilroy's script, though, is where the movie starts getting good. Like I said, there's not a lot of subtlety or nuance in how he tackles his subject matter, but it really works as a character study of those involved with it. The story itself is secondary; it isn't so much a linear narrative as it is a series of vignettes that show what Lines Louis will cross as he pursues his odd vision of the American Dream. He's a captivating character to watch because of how charismatic he is despite being a really unlikable person at his core. The flowery dialogue Gilroy has written for him sounds like cheap clichés that were stolen from some corporate motivational poster, something that works perfectly for the character. He's obviously putting on an act, hiding his ulterior motives as he manipulates people for his own gain.

It's helped by the fact that Gilroy has assembled a great cast. Rene Russo and Bill Paxton (whose role is too small and thankless, honestly) are good in their roles, while the fact that Riz Ahmed isn't given a whole lot to do actually makes sense since his character isn't either. But like how the story belongs to his character, Nightcrawler belongs to Jake Gyllenhaal. He's utterly fantastic in the role. The idea that Louis is putting on a façade that belies his amoral, greed-driven nature is made even more evident through Gyllenhaal's performance. He comes across like he's channeling elements of Christian Bale in American Psycho, only less blatantly psychotic but equally cutthroat and sociopathic. Gyllenhaal's Louis is constantly thinking, planning, attempting to stay one step ahead of everyone else. It's an amazing bit of acting that makes Nightcrawler worth seeing just for Jake Gyllenhaal alone.

I don't have any problem saying that Nightcrawler is right up there with Birdman as one of the best movies I've seen during all of 2014. It stumbles once in a whole, and there's a few scenes that run a little too long, but it still succeeds at being an exciting, entertaining thriller. Everything about it is crafted in such a way that keeps you from being able to take your eyes off of the screen. It's a unique take on a long-discussed idea, a neo-noirish flick that doesn't hold back. Nightcrawler is that kind of movie.

Final Rating: ****