A man without morals builds a business

Rating: 8/10 (2 November 2014)

Although billed as "a pulse-pounding thriller" (which, on the surface it is) Nightcrawler is at heart a character study of an amoral man. Louis Bloom exhibits many of the classic traits of an Autism Spectrum Disorder: very bad with both social interaction and communication (his relationships with his assistant and his client are both abnormal), lack of empathy (shown more and more as the film progresses), obsession (on building his business at all costs), very good on the collection and retention of information (which helps the rise of his business) and so on. All of these tendencies, with sociopath traits added, lead to a man who will stop at nothing to succeed. The other characters are necessarily two dimensional, only there to show how Lou reacts around others. Although this would normally be seen as a bad thing, by half way through you begin to see what the writer and director are giving you: the more you find out about this man and the more you live in his skin, the more uncomfortable you feel. You leave feeling attacked by the film into more discomfort that you would expect from a film and that, in itself, is worth going for!