Fantastic Satire and Character Study

Rating: 9/10 (17 September 2018)

Dan Gilroy brings us an amazingly well-executed satire and character study. Let me preface this by saying, if you get information from a single media outlet (mainly Fox news) you will not enjoy this film. To start, this movie always has the main character in mind, whether it be the cinematography, the score, or the performance, you're essentially seeing the movie made by Louis. A couple examples are the depth of field is sometimes manipulated to change what the focus of the character is, at first chatter on a police scanner and then a restaurant across the street. The most hilarious example of this is the score, the track that plays when the main character is taking pictures of a fatal car crash what plays is the most cookie cutter cheesy scattered percussion and clarinet as if it's some kind of triumphant moment for the main character. That's just not something you see a lot and I appreciate it. Jake Gyllenhaal does a phenomenal job as the main character, I never once believed he wasn't the character he was portraying, he brings very subtle yet delightfully blunt nuances to his performance. Rene Russo did a pretty good job, I don't think she was given an amazing amount of material to work with like Jake but I did feel she was giving about 65%, it wasn't noticeably bad but not miraculously outstanding, it didn't really affect the movie or my experience but it's worth noting. The political aspect of the film I think was executed amazingly, there was one line that was so on the nose I rolled my eyes but that's one line. I liked the role the internet played in the film, however, I wished there wasn't the bootleg google 'search' and I would've really appreciated they used a real editing software like sony vegas or windows movie maker, something cheap or free. Despite some of the small things that bothered me it's a fantastic movie, go watch it, it's great, tell ya friends, tell ya chilldans, get your pet to watch it with you, guaranteed fun time, no refunds. After the second watch, I'm confident in giving this a 9/10.