Nightcrawler

Rating: 9/10 (10 November 2014)

Over the last several months after premiering at what I believe was The Toronto Film Festival, and/or various other festivals, I had been hearing a lot of good feedback about Nightcrawler. Critics seemed to love it as did the audience members who had a chance to see early screenings of it. When the film was given a wide release and all major critics reviewed it, it got very impressive reviews with some calling it one of the year's best films. While, I did like the film and found a lot to admire about it, I still did not love it and would not go as far as to call it a masterpiece, or even one of the best films of the year. Jake Gyllenhaal went to great lengths for the character he portrays here by losing a lot of body weight and muscle tone as well as the fact that his character seems to be on an adrenaline, or caffeine rush because he always seems ready and raring to go for everything and he hardly ever blinks his eyes and can go on long detailed conversations with a lot of big jargoned words and very detailed sentences. For the first half hour, or so of the film I found his character actually really irritating and I found he was getting on my nerves and I could not imagine watching a character like this for a whole two hour movie. Luckily for me, I soon started to grasp the point and the various ticks and mannerisms of his character and what felt like perhaps a forced, irritating, or over the top performance at first, I soon started to appreciate the great lengths he went to, to portray a character as nuanced and hard to pinpoint in exact words. The story and film itself is quite a disturbing and very unsettling one that did disturb me and gave me an unpleasant feeling while watching it, but I wont hold that against the film because I think that that is one of the feelings the viewer is supposed to feel during and after the film. The film is a social commentary and is in some ways a satire, but I personally didn't find anything to laugh out loud about, but I did appreciate it's social commentary about the desensitization of people today and their lack of empathy, or feeling towards others and just violent and despicable deeds in general. Also, I found it interesting and appropriate how it showed just how desperate television stations are to broadcast something shocking, sensational, graphic and just plain disturbing to capture the viewer's attention, not because they are great, dedicated, or even talented journalists, or broadcasters, but for the single fact that violence, sex and anything shocking, or cringe worthy will always draw viewers whether it is a good, or negative response and that equals viewers and money for them and the station they work for. All this satire and commentary I appreciated greatly and found it both to be insightful and a good commentary and sociological commentary of us and our times. The film primarily takes place at night time and has some of the best cinematography I have seen so far this year. With the lights of the homes and businesses lit up in downtown Los Angeles, it gave the film the perfect look it needed while being visually pleasing as well. I thought the supporting performances from Rene Russo (who I haven't seen in anything for a long time) as well as Riz Ahmed, were also very good as well here. The music was atmospheric and suited the tone and mood of the film perfectly while the editing which at some points was slow and yet other times was extremely fast paced was excellently done as well. I think one of my few flaws with the film was at times it did feel a bit cold and perhaps a bit too nihilistic, or isolationist for my taste. I can get why the filmmakers decided to go that route and while it certainly does suit the film, I just really found it hard to really have much connection to the film, or these characters. I guess it did affect me in some pretty powerful ways in certain aspects because I left the film feeling jolted with feelings of unsettledness and was quite disturbed by what I had seen as I mentioned earlier. It did have a profound affect on me that way, so in that regard the filmmakers did a very good job. This was the first directorial effort of writer/director Dan Gilroy, and I must say it was an impressive one and while the film did not win me over completely, I still found a lot to admire about it and I see a promising career ahead for Mr. Gilroy and I think Jake Gyllenhaal will continue also to do good work and having a good career as well.