Directed by:
Dan GilroyScreenplay:
Dan GilroyCinematography:
Robert ElswitComposer:
James Newton HowardCast:
Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, Bill Paxton, Kevin Rahm, Michael Hyatt, Ann Cusack, Michael Papajohn, Marco Rodríguez, James Huang, Leah Fredkin (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
NIGHTCRAWLER is a thriller set in the nocturnal underbelly of contemporary Los Angeles. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Lou Bloom, a driven young man desperate for work who discovers the high-speed world of L.A. crime journalism. Finding a group of freelance camera crews who film crashes, fires, murder and other mayhem, Lou muscles into the cut-throat, dangerous realm of nightcrawling - where each police siren wail equals a possible windfall and victims are converted into dollars and cents. Aided by Rene Russo as Nina, a veteran of the blood-sport that is local TV news, Lou blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story. (Open Road Films)
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Reviews (14)
Neon LA at night vs. a phenomenal Jake Gyllenhaal, who could convince a corpse that he can play almost any kind of character and emotional creation with utter brilliancy. The pacing is slower in both the plot and the formation of the protagonist's persona. Gradually, however, it gains steam and the escalating finale boldly ranks among the most thrilling moments of the year, and the whole thing is utterly unpredictable.
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I wasn't very interested in it, it's like a sequel to End of Watch. You can watch the film without any harm and Jake Gyllenhaal is great no doubt, but there is nothing in the film that would make me want to watch it a second time, overall there is no surprise, no twist or suspense at least. It's more of a drama with a slower pace. 60%.
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That’s why I don’t watch the news. Modern retelling of the American dream and one of the films of the year. Dany Gilroy hit the nail on the head in an original reflection of today’s society which is precisely what Nightcrawler intends to be. Perfect self presentation when looking for a job, learned universal truths, recklessness, hypocrisy, hatred toward others = today’s model of a successful person. Neat camerawork, great atmosphere and perfect Jake Gyllenhaal. He’s dead. Come and film!
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L.A. at night, full of the flashing lights of ambulances, a career built on climbing over people, the hyena-like behavior of the tabloid press and a super cool Dodge Challenger. Nightcrawler gets off to a slow start, but finishes strong. The centerpiece of the film is the excellent Jake Gyllenhaal, an actor who keeps getting better with age, just like a fine wine.
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Nightcrawler is the best date movie for tabloid journalists. At the same time, it is a film that uses the withering television news industry only as a basis for addressing more universal themes with bitter cynicism – the ideology of self-improvement, extreme individualism and careerism in the conditions of market capitalism (which requires giving meaningful-sounding titles not only to meaningless jobs, but even to murder, for example). It also works superbly as a mirror held up to a rotten society, thanks to the fact that Gyllenhaal’s nocturnal predator, with his “Zelig-esque” ability to blend into any environment, lacks a stable identity (it’s no coincidence that one of the film’s final shots quotes the climax of The Usual Suspects). He cold-bloodedly and remorselessly imitates others from the beginning (he is clearly unaware that such things as morals even exist). He didn’t come up with a quick way to achieve great success himself, but learned it by watching and listening (from, among other things, television and online courses). He understood that what sells best is continuously stoked-up fear and that every person and every unfortunate event can be a monetizable commodity. He simply takes what he wants, even if he has to kill for it or create the desired reality himself. I consider the brilliantly escalated development of Lou’s alteration of reality in front of the camera to be the strength of this return to the aesthetic (from which Michael Mann similarly draws) and narrative straightforwardness of the 1980s. From rearranging the photographs on the refrigerator and concealing certain facts, Lou’s path smoothly progresses to repositioning corpses and telling lies that can be lethal. For Lou, the whole of Los Angeles becomes a computer game (GPS map, completing missions within a time limit) in which anything can be done without any major consequences (for the guilty). Related to this is another timeless level of the story – the loss of one’s ability to distinguish between what is real and what is merely conveyed to us in a world lived through media (for example, Lou’s comment that the background in the television studio looks so real, his attempt to communicate with a reporter on the screen). The film itself plays with this boundary between fiction and reality when it takes on the “action” method of news photography, even in shots that are not filmed with a television camera, thus essentially letting the protagonist become the director of what we see. Apart from his inability to distinguish between what is real and what only seems to be real, however, Lou is not that different from people who live only for their careers. Because of that, Nightcrawler could continue to elicit unpleasant chills long after the television news industry has been supplanted by internet journalism. Or something even worse. 80%
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