Forget e-bola, let's cure Lou Bloom.

Rating: 9/10 (2 November 2014)

Jake Gyllenhaal is spectacular as an scanner trolling, ambulance & opportunity chasing freelance news photog in this lurid overstuffed 1st- World nightmare of a movie.
Make no mistake, this is B-movie with all of the improbable twists & turns of the genre. It is also as relentlessly entertaining featuring an action scene as tense & nerve wracking as any I've ever seen in a Paul Greengrass movie. It's a "B-movie" like Michael Mann's "Collateral". (It also shares that movie's dreadfully beautiful look at L.A.)
Dan Gilroy's script is loaded with observations about the media, corporate, naked ambition & lust without ever being didactic. It crackles
I worked a news photog for nearly 30 years. The movie takes some liberties (in 2 --effective-- scenes it takes some outrageously so) with the way most pros go about covering tragic scenes. This movie is not about a pro news photog. It does capture the rush & adrenaline that sometimes comes from rushing to a scene most sane people would avoid.
Gyllenhaal's "Lou Bloom" is a marvel of socio-pathology. This a guy who the more you get to "know" him the less you wish you hadn't. He is "The Joker" & "John Doe" (remember "Se7en"?) incarnate. There a date scene that is worthy of Travis Bickle. He makes you squirm as much "Amy Dunne" in "Gone Girl".
This is easily one of the best films of the year. Gyllenhaal's work is for the ages.