Gyllenhaal is perfect in this dark, intensely focused thriller

Rating: 8/10 (15 August 2018)

Nightcrawler is an extreme example of a narrowly focused character drama: we don't get backstory on Bloom or much detail on the people and events outside of Bloom. Even in studying Bloom, we only see him in action; Gilroy doesn't spend any time showing the time Bloom puts in to prepare for being an independent filmer, it's all shown in his practiced knowledge of minor details and robotic explanations of successful companies. It works extremely well as a character study, as we clearly see Bloom's willingness to do anything to succeed and cold calculation with other people. It did feel a little too easy for him in many regards. His entrance into the industry was surprisingly smooth for someone with zero background experience, and his success with the news company seemed unlikely. His personal threats never came back to bite him, and he somehow never got caught despite his absurdly risky plays on crime scenes. I would imagine the police would be far more aggressive in investigating him than they were; both he and the news company didn't get nearly as much flack as they deserved. Nevertheless, Nightcrawler absolutely keeps you engrossed the entire time and is a fantastic character study of a sociopathic, aggressive main character played in one of the great recent acting performances from the man at the top of the game.