Dan Gilroy has been working as a screenwriter for a while, long enough to have started his career by penning the script for Freejack, that ridiculous movie about time travel and body swapping that Emilio Estevez and Mick Jagger starred in back in 1992. Even given his lengthy career, he’s still never really done anything that hinted at the idea he had the ability necessary to become a true voice in filmmaking though, or even a successful director (some of his other works include the abysmal Reel Steel and that Bourne sequel that got rid of Matt Damon and introduced us to Chems). Still, ignorant as we may have been to his talent, it turns out it does exist, because he’s now written and directed Nightcrawler, which is such a strong movie that it almost seems impossible that it was made by a first-time filmmaker.
Nightcrawler stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Louis Bloom, a sort-of lost soul who nonetheless has lofty aspirations to improve his station in the world. When we meet him he’s a petty thief, stealing scrap metal and selling it for a few dollars here and there, but after he happens upon a highway accident and is introduced to a freelance news photographer named Joe Loder (Bill Paxton) he’s suddenly struck with the inspiration to begin a new career. These freelance photographers refer to themselves as nightcrawlers, and the general idea of what they do is that they’re the ambulance-chasing version of a news reporter—they listen to a police scanner and wait for a violent crime or gruesome accident to happen, show up on the scene, shoot as much footage as they’re able to get, and then they try to sell it to a local TV station’s news department. It’s a scummy job that could only really be done by people who don’t mind being annoyances and who don’t mind exploiting the suffering of others, and thanks to the pile of social quirks Louis very clearly has, it winds up being a job that he’s very good at.
Ultimately, Nightcrawler is fascinating because Louis is fascinating. The film focuses itself on developing his character so that we understand his oddly detached way of thinking, while simultaneously following him along as he goes on his twisted journey of self-improvement; one that sees him becoming more and more willing to use people as pawns in order to move forward with his arbitrarily chosen goal of becoming an important player in the sensationalist world of local news broadcasts. Louis is a really slimy character who does really slimy things, and being stuck with him through this whole movie can be a pretty uncomfortable experience. There are moments when he’s sticking his camera in someone’s face as they bleed out and breathe their last breaths, or as he’s scheming to viciously eliminate a competitor, that you can’t help but want to smash his camera on the ground and punch him in the face, but because the layers of his sociopathy are so skillfully revealed by Gilroy’s script and because Gyllenhaal is so invested in his role as to be hypnotic, you can still never look away from what he’s doing.
Gyllenhaal plays Louis a bit like an alien experiencing humanity for the first time, and a bit like a starving puppy whose thin face (it appears that he went as far as to drop considerable weight for the role) and big wet eyes can’t help but make you feel a little bit sorry for him—but because there’s an instance where we see him become randomly violent in the opening scene of the film, it’s always in the back of our minds that this isn’t the sort of character who we should ever trust. Gyllenhaal enhances that notion by adding a glimmer of mischief and hidden intentions to every friendly smile and placating pleasantry his character offers up to those in his way. You know that this man is completely full of shit, but you’re never quite sure if he knows that himself, and you’re never quite sure how far he’s going to go to get what he wants.
While it would be no stretch to call Nightcrawler a character study—and mostly it resembles a traditional thriller—it’s also true that things get so big and broad in the third act that it can border on becoming an action movie, which seems like a development that should derail the whole thing. When a movie is first focused on small and grounded matters like stealing chain link fence and videotaping fender benders, making the switch to murders, shootouts, and car chases requires a big change in tone, which is often tough for a movie to pull off. But thanks to the restraint Gilroy shows in his crafting—his willingness to present everything from a detached point of view—and thanks to the twitchy, aggravated edge that Gyllenhaal gives to his performance, there’s a building tension and sense of danger that runs as a common thread through the whole thing and connects its different parts into a nerve-racking whole. It all works so well that it’s likely this movie will do great things for both men’s careers.
In passing I’ve noticed quite a few writers referring to Network when talking about Nightcrawler, because of the way it takes a satirical look at TV news’ degeneration from journalism into sensationalist entertainment. And I’ve also heard a good number of people name drop Taxi Driver when referring to it, because of the way its main character travels through society while feeling separated from it, developing his own way of thinking. There’s even a noticeable influence from works like Peeping Tom, because of the way it explores the layer of separation a camera’s lens puts between the person filming and reality. It’s strange that you can name drop all of these highly respected classics when referring to Nightcrawler, because overall its still just a piece of sleazy cheese meant to provide a couple hours of base entertainment. That’s kind of awesome. It’s refreshing to watch a piece of movie junk food that sneaks some medicine inside itself that you’ll only notice when you start feeling its positive effects later. That’s basically the opposite approach to the one David Fincher’s Gone Girl recently took, where that film masqueraded as something high-minded and then revealed itself to have trash at its center later. Nightcrawler’s strategy makes for a much more pleasant viewing experience, and it’s kept the film lingering in my thoughts several days after having seen it. Usually that’s a sure sign of a successful movie.
