Intriguing movie of how a man can do anything at his job

Rating: 7/10 (3 December 2014)

Lou is a determined and driven man looking for work. He talks smart, learns fast, and at everything, he's willing to do almost anything. One night he stumbles upon Joe Loder's crew of nightcrawlers, amateur news crew who rush to crime or accident scenes to get footage to sell to TV Stations. He immediately buys a camera and a police scanner and goes on hunting for footage. Lou doesn't hesitate to involve himself in the scene, breaking into homes and rearranging things if he feels the need arises. Soon he's able to pay an assistant Rick to read him directions so he can arrive faster than other crews, though Rick fumbles bad at his first time. Lous sells his footage to Nina from Channel 6. Even though her colleagues reject Lou'd work for looking like he barges in to homes uninvited , Nina still uses them. Some while later, Lou asks Nina on a date. She declines the offer, but eventually agrees to it as Lou threatens to stop selling her the footage if she declines. Loder meets Lou and offers him a position under him. Lou firmly rejects it. At the date, Lou tells Nina he wants to be more than professional acquaintances, to which Nina again refuses. But Lou reminds her that her Channel is the lowest rated in town, so she needs him as he wants her. Lou and Rick are beaten by Loder's crew at an incident, making Nina rejects Lou's footage on it. The angry Lou goes and tampers the brakes on Loder's van. Later, Loder gets into an accident because of it while Lou films him being taken to the hospital.
A home invasion at a mansion gives Lou a big break. He and Rick arrives before the cops. Lou gets into the house filming all the graphic footage. He succeeds in pushing his big demands to Nina over the footage. But then detectives visit Lou and demand a copy of the video. Lou doesn't tell them that he saw two suspects fleeing the scene as he arrived at the mansion. Lou brings Rick to track the killers down. Rick demands a raise due to the dangerous nature of what they're doing now. Lou agrees to Rick's number but answers he could have gone for higher. They then find the killers at a restaurant and Lou reports the location to the cops and that one of them has a gun. Cops starts to come two by two and the killers starts shooting. After his friend got shot, a killer flees the restaurant. Lou and Rick join as cops give chase. Eventually the killer's car and a cop car crash. Lou close in with his camera, sees the killer, and tells Rick that the killer's dead. Rick comes in for a close up when suddenly the killer shoots three holes in his body. While Rick's dying, Lou reveals that Rick's beginning to trouble Lou as the business owner. Nina is amazed by the footage. The detectives confiscate the footage as it's evidence. They also question Lou, saying he may had withheld information about the killers. Lou dances his tongue without blinking, so the cops let him walk. Her colleagues approach Nina about the real story of the mansion, drug robbery considering there were packs of drug in the mansion. But Nina dismisses it, stating the the criminal violence angle is more appealing. Lou then manages to grow his business, now with three interns .
The story is very nice that it has equally strong positive and negative depictions of the human nature amidst all those gruesome imagery. I like how the story shows that determination is one of the main keys of success. This is shown in how Lou can advance from being jobless to earning his first pay for his footage. Yes, the negative depictions are even more overwhelming. Lou's blatant drive of advancing his own interests, even by doing all and everything, is not exemplary at all.
The movie nicely depicts how a resourceful man with the right entry point can end up a successful man in a harsh city such as Los Angeles. Or is it the otherwise, that in a city such as Los Angeles we often demanded to do everything even bad things to be successful? The movie also nicely grasps the possible outcomes that can happen in such cases of criminality. It limits itself challengingly in showing those graphic imagery.
The acting work overall owes its good perspective to Jake Gyllenhaal. He did a very great job in depicting the Lou Bloom character. He really realized that the movie's mostly centered on Lou and how Lou deal with things his own way. He nicely balances that aspect of Lou's unmeasured blatancy with the constant great play of facial expressions. He did great on those serious faces, especially on those crucial parts with Rick, and those newbie smirks when Lou kind of begs for a job even as an intern. Rene Russo and Bill Paxton did quite nice in giving the much needed balancing angles for the story,
For me Nightcrawler is worthy of a 7 out of 10 score. A recommendation is a definite and quick yes from me. It's very intriguing as a movie that it leaves the viewers with contradicting senses of being irritated but also amazed by what Lou did.