“Nightcrawler” Written and Directed by Dan Gilroy

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Director:

Dan Gilroy (This is his directorial debut)

Main Cast:

Jake Gyllenhaal (“October Sky”, “Donnie Darko”, “Brokeback Mountain”)

Riz Ahmed (“Four Lions”)

Rene Russo (“Get Shorty”, “The Thomas Crown Affair”, “The Adventures of Rocky & Bulwinkle”)

Bill Paxton (“Aliens”, “Titanic”, “A Simple Plan”)

Running Time:  117 Minutes

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Set in Los Angeles, “Nightcrawler“, more than anything, is a character study.  And the character being studied is a unique, intense, and disturbing one.

Gaunt, hard-edged Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) earns his meager living stealing things like fence wiring and manhole covers to sell to scrap dealers.  Clearly, he’ll steal anything to sell to anyone who will buy it.  He comes across an automobile accident where he sees Joe Loder (Bill Paxton) videotaping and finds out Loder sells the footage to TV stations.  Bloom is immediately hooked and decides being a “nightcrawler” (a term Bloom and the audience learn from Loder) is his calling.   He dives into his adopted profession with a cheap pawn-shop camcorder, his beat-up old car, a single employee (Rick, played by Riz Ahmed, who is the job’s only applicant), and a scary and intense laser focus.  The lengths Bloom will go to get the footage he wants and further his competitive position are boundless and sociopathic.  The way he speaks to people is programmed and lacking in spontaneity, like a bad motivational speaker.  It’s implied he learns how to communicate (and everything else he needs to know) from the internet.  You can’t help but wonder about his back story but there’s none offered in the film.  It’s just as well, any background would have slowed down the story.  Besides, it reflects how, once Bloom takes on the career of nightcrawler, he never looks in any direction but straight ahead.

The only TV station Bloom sells his footage to is the fictitious low-rated KWLA and his contact there is the world-worn Nina (Rene Russo, right, with Gyllenhaal), the station’s news program director.  Nina spends as much time fending off Bloom’s forceful advances as she does negotiating and strategizing with him.  We learn through Bloom’s internet research that Nina has moved from station to station and hasn’t held any job longer than two years (the length of her contracts).  Her weathered beauty reminds me of Sherrie North’s (Kramer’s mom on Seinfeld) 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s TV series appearances.  To emphasize her not-quite-winning situation, Nina walks with a slight limp and wears excessive makeup.  She may not have a good track record but she recognizes she lucked into something special in nurturing her relationship with Bloom.  The business relationship between the two is similar to the one between Howard Beale and Diana Christensen (Oscar® winners Peter Finch and Faye Dunaway) in Sidney Lumet’s 1976 “Network.”

Ahmed (left, with Gyllenhaal) is good as Rick, the character the audience relates to most.  He expresses what we think, especially in the well-delivered and tortured advice he gives to Bloom about learning how to treat and talk to people.  He’s the voice of reason to someone who has no interest in listening.  As with Bloom, there isn’t much range for the character of Rick and he is always on edge and never at ease.  I’m not sure if that’s his nature, because of his financial situation, or because that’s how anyone would be working with Bloom and doing what they do for a living.  Ahmed’s performance became more impressive when I found out he’s London-born and an Oxford grad.  His ethnicity in the film is never referened but, because they’re in LA and judging by his enunciation, I thought it was implied he was Mexican-American or at least Hispanic.  Russo (the wife of director Dan Gilroy) effectively conveys Nina’s savvy and world-weary desperation.  In a role without much screen time but on which the story repeatedly turns, Bill Paxton plays Joe Loder with a trademark oiliness (think of his character in James Cameron’s 1994 “True Lies”) that makes Bloom seem upstanding by comparison.  At first.

The technical focus of the movie is the fast car chase scenes.  The film has more of them than “Drive” and is actually more deserving of that movie title.  If nothing else, we’re impressed by Bloom’s driving skill and luck in avoiding accidents.  Having lived in Los Angeles and being familiar with most of the locations gave me an appreciation for how difficult the chases must have been to film.  The scenes in the news control room give us a good behind-the-scenes look at something we’d otherwise never think about.  The entire movie is well made and its pacing doesn’t give you a moment to think about looking at your watch.  Actually, the title “Drive” would have worked on two levels because of Bloom’s intense focus on being successful.

Bloom doesn’t actually wear his craziness on his sleeve as much as this still sugggests.

The unquestionable star of the movie is the psychology of the lead character. Bloom’s tunnel-vision, disturbing (probably the word you’ll hear most when people talk about the movie) and sociopathic behavior make for a unique movie character.  I thought about how many people are a step away from being the same way, assuming they’re not already there.  The way their dysfunction manifests itself is not as cinematic as it is with Bloom but it’s there.  I read a recent headline that said that CEO’s and hedge fund people are psychopathic.  Here are two articles on the topic:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/21/top-10-psychopathic-professions-ceo-lawyer-then-me/

http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2012/03/study-10-on-wall-street-are-psychopaths.html

The less compassion and humanity you have, the higher on that top-10 list you are.  Pretty simple.

Knowing the basic premise, I went into “Nightcrawler” knowing I’d find the subject matter dark and grating and I was right.  The characters are either unlikeable or unenviable.  When the police confront Bloom and Nina about the questionable means in which his crime scene video footage was obtained, you’re not sure who to root for.

This being the “For Your Consideration” season, I have to talk about Gyllenhaal’s Oscar chances.  The character of Bloom has a strong presence and an unquestionable intensity but it also has so little range I’m not sure Gyllenhaal’s performance is as good as the role or the story, even though I can’t imagine him doing a better job.  Gyllenhaal commands your attention every second he’s on screen, but Bloom is so one-dimensional and unlikeable I think both traits will work against Gyllenhaal at Oscar time.

A lot has been made of Gyllenhaal’s 30-pound weight loss for the role, which I’m not sure was necessary, except that it makes his character appear more literally and metaphorically hungry.  I can’t help but think someone figured the dramatic weight change would help his Oscar chances the way it did Best Actor winners Robert DeNiro (“Raging Bull”, right), Adrien Brody (“The Pianist”), and Matthew McConoughey (“Dallas Buyers Club”).  It also gives his eyes more intensity.  Something else I questioned was how someone with Bloom’s focus and hunger for success never found a niche prior to his chance meeting with a nightcrawler.  I guess the simple answer is nothing ever clicked with him.  Usually those guys go into sales or become traders on Wall Street.  Or serial killers.

As a reference, I guess you could compare Gyllenhaal’s Bloom to Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of Hannibal Lechter in Jonathan Demme’s 1992 “The Silence of the Lambs” (left).  We fear yet respect Lechter and we’re drawn to him.  We hope he’s successful at the film’s end when he says he’s “having an old friend for dinner.”  We appreciate his intellect and ─ for lack of a better word ─ flair, find him fascinating, and want to see more of him.  By comparison, once we fully understand Bloom, we can only wish failure on him and be glad to rid ourselves of him as the closing credits roll.

I’ve always felt the gut feeling Oscar voters have when they leave a movie is what dictates their voting decision.*  “Nightcrawler” is a contender for a Best Actor Oscar nomination and may get nominations for directing, writing and technicals.  Despite the strong lead performance and compelling storyline, I don’t think it will win any.  I don’t remember the last time I left a movie this good rooting against its Oscar chances.

DPW

November 10, 2014

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My dislike of “Nightcrawler” prompted me to watch Joe Johnston’s 1999 “October Sky.” I wanted to see Gyllenhaal in a performance of a likeable character in a likeable movie.  I try to watch as many autumn and scary movies as possible during October.  Especially given its title, it’s odd I forgot about “October Sky” until I watched “Nightcrawler.”

It also prompted me to watch Richard Kelly’s fascinating 2001 film,  “Donnie Darko”, where Gyllenhaal plays the tormented lead character.  It takes place during the month of October. “Nightcrawler” prompted me to watch two movies I enjoy yet I still resent it.

Gyllenhaal also starred in the Denis Villenueve brooding mystery thriller “Enemy” earlier this year.  It made for an OK (and confusing) watch but it’s not something I’d recommend.  For me, it was much more about mood than story.

* This thought first occurred to me when John Madden’s “Shakespeare in Love” won the 1999 Best Picture Oscar over Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan.”  Although I personally like “Shakespeare” more (it was a Miramax Films release and won 7 Oscars), “Ryan” is a monumental production, gets great, honest performances from its large cast of recognizable actors, and has my favorite Tom Hanks performance.  I’m not a big fan of the guy’s acting but he nails his ordinary-guy-under-extraordinary-circumstances role.  What ruins “Ryan” for me are the present-day sentiment-drenched bookends at the beginning and end of the movie.  It worked at the end of “Shindler’s List” but it feels manipulative and schmaltzy with “Ryan” and the movie would have been better without it.  The imdb scores are 8.6 for “Ryan” and 7.2 for “Shakespeare.”  Granted, the scores, while aggregated, are still subjective.  Frank Darabont’s 1994 “The Shawshank Redemption”,  a movie I liked but which made no lasting impresssion on me, is ranked #1 on imdb’s Top 250 list.  I think I could easily come up with 100 movies I like more or think are better (there’s a difference).  I could probably come up with 100 foreign movies alone.

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