Nightcrawler is one of those films where you know from a very early point in the plot that terrible things are going to happen. The trajectories which characters embark upon, either by their own volition or at the behest of another, seem destined to terminate in chaos and ruin, and you can barely bring yourself to watch these seemingly inevitable events unfold as the film progresses. This is certainly true of Dan Gilroy’s stunning directorial debut, and in its protagonist Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), the instigator of this terrible sequence of events, we’re introduced to one of the great antiheroes of modern cinema.
Bloom emerges mysteriously from the Los Angeles night, a man with no past and a demonic drive for self-advancement. Spouting catechisms from business textbooks and self-help manuals, he roams the city in search of a job, and seems to find his true calling after witnessing the wreckage of a car accident being filmed by cameraman Joe (Bill Paxton) so that the footage can be sold on to a local TV news network. “If it bleeds, it leads,” says Joe, and just like that Bloom is initiated into a gruesome moonlit world of police scanners, ambulance-chasing and bloodied victims – “nightcrawling”. Arming himself with a cheap camera and showing no regard for human dignity, Bloom’s determination and natural talent catch the eye of TV news editor Nina (Rene Russo), who promises rich rewards if he keeps bringing her intimate shots of dying accident victims. With the assistance of his newly-recruited navigator Rick (Four Lions‘ Riz Ahmed), Bloom begins his unscrupulous ascent towards the top of the TV food chain, and in doing so crosses the line between chronicler of tragedy and author of it.
Nightcrawler is ostensibly a satire about American TV news, albeit an extremely dark and disturbing one. That bloodier and more shocking news reports are automatically given more coverage seems unsurprising in our spectacle-obsessed society, but this doesn’t stop the bloodthirst of Nina and her employers leaving a bad taste in one’s mouth; it is, of course, this hunger for carnage that enables Bloom and his immoral antics. The questions the film asks are, however, applicable to every area of society and human interaction. It’s as much about the dog-eat-dog model of personal advancement advocated by many amoral business gurus as it is the ethically dubious nature of 21st century news coverage, putting it in a similar bracket to movies like Oliver Stone’s Wall Street and James Foley’s Glengarry Glen Ross. Bloom’s almost inhuman hunger for success is what drives the movie forward, and it leads to some horrifying scenes which mirror the character’s internal corruption. While Paxton, Russo and Ahmed all turn in fantastic performances (the depth of acting talent on show is one of the film’s key strengths), Gyllenhaal’s performance is stunning. He portrays Bloom as a nightmarish wraith; pale, wide-eyed, frighteningly intense, and acting like a Travis Bickle for the 24-hour news age, the character’s psychopathic lack of empathy and talent for manipulation make him one of the most memorable movie villains of recent years, and if Gyllenhaal is overlooked at next year’s Oscar nominations it will be criminal.
Director Dan Gilroy has been writing films for over twenty years, and Nightcrawler is the first time he’s stepped behind the camera. The strength of his own script makes for an auspicious debut, but the film wouldn’t be half as good if his directing didn’t live up to the writing. With a look that’s at times reminiscent of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, his cameras conjure forth a Los Angeles saturated with tension and dull dread, where screaming sirens pierce the inky black night as another car burns, another victim expires. Deftly balancing intimate character moments and gripping action sequences (including a thrilling car chase at the film’s climax), Gilroy proves himself a capable film-maker, and gives us an unexpectedly brilliant piece of cinema.
[suffusion-the-author]
[suffusion-the-author display='description']