Chameleon

Although throughout 2014 already we have had great thrillers such as ‘Transcendence’ and ‘Gone Girl’ which itself explores the wild misconceptions and dangerous influences of the media, ‘Nightcrawler’ goes beyond that and explores another even more corrupt slant of the entity’s nature; boldly capitalising on the popularity of crime television (violence, murder, blood, fires, gunshots). ‘ ‘Nightcrawler’ follows Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) as he climbs up the ladder of success from being a rock-bottom thief selling scrap for any amount of money he can get, to being a freelance videographer for a T.V news channel; ambitiously fixating himself to the streets of L.A in the dead of night shooting for the most shocking and risque footage he can get away with. Lacking a formal education and adequate work experience, Bloom is truly a victim of the unfair modern job market/unemployment.

First and foremost, it isn’t right to just talk about the film before we mention how good Gyllenhaal’s performance was and how arguably, this is one of his best performances of his career so far. Gyllenhall taps into a character that is rather hard to define; it’s a role that he is completely submerged into and oozes through every frame as our dislike for Bloom intensifies throughout the film. His creepy, relaxed composure hides the true inner scariness and ferocity. Publicly, Louis is a professional, polite, and upstanding citizen who’s just looking to work hard. Privately, he violently yells in front of a mirror until he shatters it, as well as blackmails a TV news director to further his career. A scene which emphasises the character perfectly is when he asks for a job and is violently rejected. “I don’t fucking hire thieves!” the man say’s to him, to which Lou laughs. He gets it. It’s the kind of response Lou understands and probably would have said himself, that’s the kind of guy he is. He may be down on his luck, antisocial and, in the end, a raging sociopath, but he’s also one hell of a smart and driven man. Add those things up and the result is scary, especially once Lou seems to find his calling in freelance videography, tracking down crime scenes in the dead of night and capturing all the gory details on camera. For me, he echoes the memorable sociopaths such as Travis Bickle (DeNiro) in ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘Driver’ (Gosling) in ‘Drive’ but less sympathetic. I think physically as well, he looks like someone who does stay up all night and spends most of his hours alone looking at a computer screen all the time which essentially he does do. Rene Russo also impresses as the news director Nina since she like Bloom, is willing to be daring in her lust for more provocative violent imagery, but inadvertently fuels Bloom’s psychotic drive which I thought was executed and paced rather well. Riz Ahmed (who you’ll know from ‘Four Lions’) who play’s Lou’s gullible, homeless “employee” Rick shouldn’t be over-looked here as he like Nina, is someone who slot’s in very well with the narrative and again helps drive Bloom to become more darker than he already was before and doesn’t become this rather distracting or annoying side role; Ahmed keeps a consistent performance throughout and is a character that helps the audience become engaged in his experience working under a character like Bloom. I also like this quote that Bloom say’s to Rick in the film, it just portrays Gyllenhaal’s character really well – “I will never ask you to do anything that I wouldn’t do my-self”.

Ultimately, Nightcrawler juggles two tricky but immersing features with its material, simultaneously giving us a look into a grimy and often dirty gig as somebody who is essentially a voyeur into the most vulnerable time of the people he meets and posing frightening commentary on contemporary news. The night-crawler is not looking to help or to provide encouragement; he’s there to get his shots and move on, hoping to turn as large of a profit as he can. We see Los Angeles in the light of what could be classifiable as a contemporary film noir, in dark, sometimes shadowy-photography and dingy environments that reveal an ugliness to a city that is normally captured as very beautiful and ideal in terms of climate. It probably goes without saying that the lending from cinematographer Robert Elswit is visually gripping. While we do have lovely time-lapses/ visual montages of L.A which does feel very reminiscent of ‘Drive’ (Refn, 2011), it does have this coldness about it which makes it very original to see which correlates well with the themes and messages that the narrative of the film is portraying for everyone. Given that the film smartly paces itself well with a good scene after good scene and it’s rather fast editing, Elswit’s camera is fluid and captures some amazing images in the shadows of Los Angeles which in return subverts our ideas of L.A and makes us focus on locations that show the ugliest of human events in such a way that is beautiful and captivating. The realism as well that is applied to some of the crime scenes and the driving sequences really adds another dimension since it gives us the pleasure of being the voyeur and translates all of what we see to be believable. The other kind of cinematic approach that I really liked about the film was the way Director Dan Gilroy paced the entirety of the film. ‘Nightcrawler’ is a perfect example of a well told Thriller film; each scene that comes along is as better as the last and adds a lot more depth and darkness to the experience especially towards the second half of the film when Bloom is upping his expectations and stumbles upon crime scenes that will make him infamous.

One feature/theme that Nightcrawler toys with is the contemporary exploration of journalistic ethics and how the manipulation of videography and news is ever present of T.V. News programs like sitcoms, reality shows sport broadcasts are a game of numbers and those numbers equal to ratings and more money which is something that Nightcrawler throughout makes this depressingly clear to us. A significant scene which portrays this clearly is when Bloom has shot and sold the defining tape of his career and has worked to manipulate it for his personal gain. He watches as Nina plays the tape on the live show, directing the news reporters in such a specific way in terms of language and mannerisms that we see the fear-mongering happen right before our eyes. 

I do only have a few complaints which may knock down this films credibility. I couldn’t help but get a little bit tired/bored of Bloom in certain segments of the film especially near the ending segments due to the fact that I thought it was repetitive seeing Bloom constantly act the same way and doing the same things throughout. I would of liked to of seen a more diverse outlook of Bloom; something that was just different and unexpected such as when Bloom rages and smashes his bathroom mirror; I would like to of seen another moment like that which really expresses Blooms ferociousness more. I think as well being that it is a directorial debut from Dan Gilroy, I would of liked to seen him go all out and really express more imagination and surrealism into this type of story which gradually gets more surreal and darker throughout.

Overall, very much resembling the comedic blackness of Dr.Stranglove (Kubrick,1964) and the visual and character archetype of Drive, Nightcrawler is darkly comedic, surprisingly disturbing and and is brilliantly acted. Looking Gyllenhaal’s performance as Lou Bloom, the psychotic but calm individual, it wouldn’t surprise me if Gyllenhaal went on to win or at least be nominated for this role in the film awards to come; it’s arguably his best ever role in his career tipping of some of his other darker performances such as Donnie Darko (Donnie Darko, 2001) or Robert Graysmith (Zodiac, 2007). For his Directorial debut, Dan Gilroy has done a really good job and typifies what a good thriller film should look and feel like when watching it. 

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ – Alex Rabbitte