An Instant Classic Film and Character

Rating: 10/10 (31 October 2014)

"Nightcrawler" may very well be the best film of the year.
Many times with a directorial debut feature, we're seeing a long-time-coming original work. This flick is no exception.
We're given insight into a unique corner of the world that has never been highlighted to my knowledge in film before. I'm not even sure if the concept of a "nightcrawler" is real, but what it means to go "nightcrawling" is to give television stations (or their competitors) the chance to give their viewers front-row seats to breaking stories.The footage they capture can be seen as raw and unprofessional, but our title character gets so in-depth he starts his own business where "in order to gain job security you must make yourself an indispensable employee"...at any cost. The film plays like a behind-the-scenes look into the world of television news, and could be seen as insightful as why our news is so dark. While the "news" is not at all the subject of this flick, the heart of the whole thing may just be how to get your own business running, but the plot itself plays perfectly in the background of a mad character study. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Louis Bloom, a conniving manipulator who is more character than personality, both smart (even though he doesn't come from a "proper education") and psychotic (he'll do whatever he needs to get ahead), in a performance so precise we always know what's going on in his head and his motivation (business, capitalism) so haunting he almost disappears as an actor. The film itself almost makes you forget you're watching a movie from cinematography mixed with shaky-cam ("steady hands") so purposefully and editing that builds into an edge-of-your-seat climax culminating itself with a car chase of the like I haven't seen in years (even if it is still overly-edited).
If this flick were made in the '80s, we would get sequel after sequel with new actors playing the main nightcrawler, but as the genesis film surely warrants a dozen rip-offs of an idea this great, this one will stay fresh in our minds for a long time.