NIGHTCRAWLER (2014) Review: A Gripping Odyssey Of A Reporter

Nightcrawler (not the X-Man), directed by Dan Gilroy, stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Bill Paxton, Riz Ahmed and more in a story about a man named Louis Bloom (Gyllenhaal), a con man desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism. While paving his way into this new endeavor, he finds that he can easily blur the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story.

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The film starts out watching Bloom trying to sell stolen goods to a buyer, then robbing an uber driver of his nice wrist watch and so forth and so on.

He then happens upon a crime scene and watches an independent news crew filming the crime, and as he strikes up a conversation with the camera operator and discovers that the man does this to make money.

After that, one thing leads to another, and the next thing you know, Bloom is chasing down emergency calls with a camera of his own...

As the story develops, he starts to get a feel for how the system works, and before you know it, he starts to manipulate the system to put himself at the scene of the crime long before anyone else gets there. He films things that are questionable at best, but it's ratings and big bucks.

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Through the film, Bloom strikes this viewer as a methodically intelligent crook. But as the story progresses, he has such a unemotional and a too-methodical of an approach to how he conducts business that you have to wonder if he isn't actually on the autistic spectrum, with maybe Asperger's.

Through and through, with his portrayal of this desperate yet intelligent two-bit crook turned news camera man, Gyllenhaal carries the story. He keeps you wondering while at the same time, at moments, kind of horrifies you at the depths he'll go to make a name for himself.

Nightcrawler got a 7.8/10 on IMDb and I think it's a worthy bit of entertainment, especially if you like Gyllenhaal.

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