Dark, edgy and reasonably satisfying - although I still think it's unworthy of all the hype that surrounds it

Rating: 6/10 (6 March 2015)

Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) plays Louis Bloom, a desperate young man living in LA who is looking for work of any description. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts at gaining employment (one reason being that he is a known thief), Louis cruises the streets and stumbles across an accident on the freeway. His inquisitive nature leads him to ask questions to the camera crew about the industry that they're in and he then asks for a job which is quickly declined. Seeing a potential earner for himself, Louis equips himself with a camera and a police scanner and sets to work becoming a freelance reporter who sells his work to TV News Director Nina Romina (Rene Russo).
Dark & Edgy - those are two words that first sprang to my mind when describing this film. Dark refers to the plot and Edgy refers to Gyllenhaal's character and the general narrative. In essence, it's actually quite a thin plot that sees Gyllenhaal and his apprentice Rick (Riz Ahmed) racing to various crime scenes in an attempt to cover the story before other news crews and law enforcement agencies attend the scene so that they have exclusive coverage. All these scenes are edgy and quite thrilling and there is also a bit of humour thrown in (notably when Rick causes Louis to overshoot a turn by 5 blocks because he was unable to follow the Sat Nav). The first half for me was much stronger than the second half; Gyllenhaal's character does suck you in right from the start; he's quirky, weird and a bit different, but it's a bit of a gimmick and it does start to wear thin.
There were a couple of problems with this film; firstly I felt that the final act was a little too drawn out (although the exciting car chase does make up for this rather long final act). Considering, it's billed as a Thriller I wouldn't actually say it was consistently thrilling (although it certainly had many exciting moments).
Ending on a positive note I thought Gyllenhaal was fantastic and I do believe he did a really good job at portraying a quirky and multi-layered character. The directing and editing were also superb and the whole film was very well put together. It's worth watching as it does offer the viewer something different, but I just didn't think it was a masterpiece or even close to being a masterpiece.