Anatomy of a Scene | ‘Nightcrawler’
The writer and director Dan Gilroy narrates a sequence from “Nightcrawler,” featuring Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo.
Video by Mekado Murphy on Publish Date October 30, 2014. Photo by Open Road Films.Lou Bloom, the title character of “Nightcrawler,” is a youngish man who possesses a strong work ethic, tireless curiosity and very little in the way of conscience or human feeling. Played with a precise repertoire of tics by Jake Gyllenhaal, Lou usually smiles when he speaks, but that seems more like learned behavior than genuine friendliness, since he is too literal-minded to understand jokes or social cues.
Adrift in a violent and gloomy Los Angeles, where he lives alone in a small apartment, Lou hatches an ambition that quickly blossoms into an obsession. Learning that local television stations will pay good money for video of accidents, fires and crime scenes — the bloodier, the better — he sets out to corner the market. With a police scanner and a cheap video camera, he speeds through the nighttime streets, looking for horrible images he can sell.
In another sense, Lou aspires to be something much grander than a purveyor of grisly footage for the evening news. His dream — or rather the dream of Dan Gilroy, the writer and director of “Nightcrawler,” and perhaps of Mr. Gyllenhaal as well — is to join the ranks of Travis Bickle and Rupert Pupkin, classic ’70s and ’80s sociopaths, created by Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, who held a grim, unflattering, endlessly fascinating mirror up to the society that produced them. “Nightcrawler” is besotted by the sleaze and corruption that Lou both uncovers and represents, and it is also eager to turn his petty, predatory endeavors into raw material for social commentary.
Movie Review: ‘Nightcrawler’
The Times critic A. O. Scott reviews “Nightcrawler.”
Video by Robin Lindsay on Publish Date October 31, 2014. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick/Open Road Films.But a creepy disposition does not an antihero make, and “Nightcrawler” never attains anywhere near the gravity or the impact of “Taxi Driver” and “The King of Comedy.” Its message — that the news media feeds a morbid fascination with atrocity — is hardly implausible, but the target is more than a little shopworn, and the stance of queasy outrage feels secondhand, not to say a bit hypocritical. Local news, embodied in a desperate, cynical producer played by Rene Russo, may be a snake pit of tawdry, ratings-driven exploitation, but in the age of TMZ, in which everyone with a smartphone is a potential video journalist, there is something quaint about the film’s hyperventilating sense of scandal.
Really, though, the chasing after important themes is a distraction. “Nightcrawler” is a modest and effectively executed urban thriller, suspenseful and entertaining in its clammy, overwrought way. Mr. Gyllenhaal’s performance, while not remotely persuasive, is disciplined and meticulous in its creepiness, and Mr. Gilroy keeps the audience off balance, fascinated and repelled, half rooting for Lou to succeed, and half dreading what he will do next.
As his business starts to grow, Lou tangles with rivals and hires a wide-eyed sidekick (Riz Ahmed), all the while explaining himself in the jargon of management and self-help. He is a fast learner, and his amoral zeal causes him to evolve from eager voyeur into something much worse. His earnest belief in himself is both funny and dismaying, and his complete indifference to ethical boundaries makes for some slightly guilty fun. But nothing much beyond that. “Nightcrawler” is a slick and shallow movie desperate, like Lou himself, to be something more.
“Nightcrawler” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Graphic violence and ugly language.