Doesn't Pause Enough To Examine The Really Great Material

Rating: 5/10 (27 February 2017)

On the surface, "Nightcrawler" is a very well-made film. The production value is high, the visuals are great, acting is solid, and it delves into a number of very relevant themes regarding journalism and TV news. The problem, however, is that director Dan Gilroy doesn't pause nearly enough to examine the really interesting parts of the film. Instead, everything in the movie is kind of viewed in the abstract...with very little (and thus I would argue not nearly enough) context given in order to make it a truly great piece of film-making.
For a basic plot summary, "Nightcrawler" sees Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) trying desperately to find a job in a rough economy. One night, he stumbles upon a crime scene and meets Joe Loder (Bill Paxton), an independent TV news cameraman who impresses Louis with his ability to "do the dirty work" and get paid handsomely for it. So, Louis decides to get into the TV journalism business himself, even doing well enough to hire a partner in Rick (Riz Ahmed). Along the way, Louis also develops a relationship (that some might consider inappropriate) with head news director Nina Romina (Rene Russo). Things seem to be going great for Louis and his thriving business...until the night he arrives at a burglary scene before the police, making a number of choices leading him down a shady ethical path that he may or may not recover from.
Easily the two most interesting parts of this film are Gyllenhaal's Louis and the movie's examination of the TV news business. Both of those subjects carry very weighty, relevant themes in today's society and are worthy of examination. Unfortunately, both are also just kind of glossed over in favor of "the spectacle" in this case.
Louis is one of the strangest characters I've ever seen on the big screen (done to perfection, as usual, by the underrated Gyllenhaal). On one hand, you can kind of feel sorry for him, as he never seems to catch a break early on. On the other hand, he is such a smarmy individual that he is far from like-able. Usually I like this kind of ambiguity in my film characters, but in this case it comes off more as confusing than interesting. At the end of flick, I didn't feel like I cared any more about Louis than I did, oh, 20 or so minutes in.
As for the many themes regarding televised news, I really wish the pace of the film would have allowed even more examination of them. There is a character in the newsroom (played by Kevin Rahm) who always bring up the ethical issues of what is transpiring, but he is quickly pushed aside each and every time. Perhaps that is a statement being made in and of itself, but I still feel like the movie wanted us (as viewers) to take a few too many things at face value. I wanted to see the principals struggle a bit regarding their decisions. There just didn't seem to be any conflict in what was happening.
Overall, though, "Nightcrawler" isn't a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. In my mind, it is the complete and utter personification of a "three star effort", as it easily did enough to hold my interest, yet didn't do anything more to really make me care in the end. To me, this was very much a "take it or leave it" experience. Had some closer examination of themes/characters taken place, I think it could have been much, much more interesting.