Nightcrawler (2014)
– Nightcrawler is one of those
critically acclaimed films that I missed during last year’s Oscar season,
something that never registered high on my radar but always felt like I’d get
around to it eventually. I finally did, on a very small television in the
middle of the night, and I’d venture to say that that’s the perfect way to view
this film. As Louis Bloom, Jake Gyllenhaal is supremely creepy as a
videographer turned ambulance chaser who sells his footage to morning news
programs. Think Taxi Driver meets Blow-Up by way of American Psycho; it’s a captivating performance, Gyllenhaal with
his lean wolfish appearance and relentlessly unsettling efforts at charisma,
that doesn’t quite let you forget who’s underneath the character but allows you
to look at him askance as you ponder just how bad it’s going to get. And oh my,
does it get bad – bad in the sense of morally transgressive, never unwatchable
but ethically uncomfortable for how compelling the movie ends up being. You’d
be forgiven for not knowing this was director Dan Gilroy’s first outing behind
the camera, for the tension he creates as Louis slips further into amorality is
absolutely palpable, literally placing me on the edge of my seat as Louis’s
master stroke unfolds. Indeed, the metaphor of a car crash is particularly apt,
since Louis frequently films those, but it’s also gripping in the way that a
moment of brutality is, prompting the viewer to wonder just how complicit we
are in these actions. We watch the news, but how often do we turn away when
that salivating teaser of “graphic footage” is intoned? How much guilt can be
placed solely at the feet of Louis and his ambitions? And what’s Gilroy going
to direct next? This is one to watch, folks.
That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!
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