It's a cold world

Rating: 8/10 (8 February 2019)

I found this movie adressing me in an unexpected way. For me it was not only about the dark and immoral side of human mind, but also about where that side often surfaces, in work. I hope I'm not alone with my interpretation.
The story is about Lou Bloom, a smart and charismatic psychopath, who, despite of his obvious talents, is a small time crook. One night he crashes into freelance news cameramen who are covering crimes and accidents and makes a career choice at once.
And it seems he does well for himself. He has exactly the right set of skills for the work. No consciousness, moral or sense of empathy and a talent to manipulate people. From there on, we can follow Lou's morally grotesque way to the top of the business.
Everything he does is as succesfull as it is morally wrong. The things he does to his assistant, competitor and also to his boss, who by the way doesn't deserve any more sympathy either, are really beyond disgusting. It showcases the freelancer news shooter scene as very cold world where victims are seens as dollars and cents and the misfortune of others is the fortune of nightcrawler. People are really not people at all, just expendable assets.
What brings the added extra intensity to Lou's character is phenomenal performance of Jake Gyllenhaal. He actually lost a lot of weight for this role, and his dedication to become Lou Bloom can be seen on the screen. This is definitely one of the strongest performances of his career, and that's a lot said when we are talking about actor like Jake Gyllenhaal. Rene Russo also delivers a solid performance in supporting role.
What all the people surely get out of this movie is the painting of the mind of a utterly cold sociopath and the coldness and corruption of the sort of news business presented here. However, I'd like to add third aspect here, namely how people lose themselves in their jobs. Been reading lately Deadly Medicines And Organized Crime book by Peter C. GÃ¶tschze, that introduces the immorality of pharma industry. There the author mentions once that he knows some of the people in industry, and they would never do the stuff they do at job in their pivate lifes. Somehow it seems that when they enter the work, their morale changes completely. And it is quite often, than people who have what you could called green set of values, end up doing job that is harmfull to the environment and against their values, just to state an example.
I mean, in this movie, Lou of course doesn't do his legal job very legally. But the point is, that when he goes from the world of crime to the world of legal business, he doesn't go more ethical, but a long way to unethical direction.
So, the bad news is not that there're psychopaths among us, but that they are really succesfull in this world. It's not just few individuals that're corrupted, but more like the entire system, that drives people to be even more corrupted, what obviously is presented in this movie.