Driving A Taxi In The City Of Angels

Rating: 7/10 (4 April 2015)

Louis Bloom is an unemployed oddball loner who cruises the dark streets of Los Angeles watching - and sometimes partaking - crime unfold . Hitting upon the idea of becoming a TV journalist he hires an unpaid assistant and a camcorder with the idea of selling footage to the local TV station
This film written and directed by Dan Gilroy owes more than a bit to Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER and THE KING OF COMEDY . Now for some of us anyone who wants to emulate Martin Scorsese is okay in our book since he's the master of American cinema who has made some genuinely great films . Also Gilroy acknowledges he's not executing an original concept and there's a scene early in the film where Bloom changes his hairstyle which is no doubt semiotic code similar to what Travis Bickle does towards the end of TAXI DRIVER . I can also recognise that while on the surface being a TV journalist isn't necessarily someone who may become a folk hero but as someone who has spent far too much time on youtube laughing hysterically at episodes of TO CATCH A PREDATOR I've got to admit Chris Hansen had the best job in the world
The difference between TAXI DRIVER and this movie is that while many men if they were honest they would confess to recognising an element of Travis Bickle in themselves or at the very least recognise the motives of Travis wanting to become a gun toting vigilante . Louis Bloom works less successfully as character recognition to the audience . Played by Jake Gyllenhaal as a wide eyed loon he's a little bit too creepy and weird to be entirely sympathetic as an anti-hero . He's also written as a little too broad . You can instantly see he's pursuing the all American dream but in doing so his pedantic speech mannerisms and his motives mirror all too much the problems of corporate capitalism . In short NIGHTCRAWLER is an interesting and engaging black comedy without being the great film Gilroy had hoped it might have been