Imagine Donnie Darko all Grown up and Evil.

Rating: 9/10 (11 February 2015)

Nightcrawler stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Louis Bloom, an eccentric and sometimes psychotic sociopath looking for work. One night he stumbles upon a camera crew headed by Joe Loader (Bill Paxton), who explains the world of gonzo style freelance news reporting, Nightcrawling. A kind of blood and guts crime paparazzi of sorts. It's not long before Louis gets a camera and starts going out doing his own videos and selling them to Nina Romina (Rene Russo). Nina is a night shift news director who pays for gory news footage. She takes a liking to Louis and his ability to get such up close and daring scenes. Eventually Louis starts getting too involved in crime scenes, beating police and rescue teams to the locations and going way too far to get the perfect shot. Nightcrawler is easily the best performance of Gyllenhaal's career. I feel he was cheated for not getting an Oscar nod for this role. His overall appearance in Nightcrawler is just haunting. According to IMDb he lost about 20lbs for this role. The whites of his bulging wide eyes glow evil as he delivers an absolutely transcendent performance. Imagine if Donnie Darko (2001) grew up evil. Louis is like a demonic Don Quixote, with Rick Garcia his "intern" (Riz Ahmed) as his Sancho Panda. Louis has delusions of grandeur with a total detachment from reality. Wild-eyed and determined to get as up close and personal with death and carnage. The movie feels like a high octane Drive (2012). This is one of those great movies set in Los Angles, where the city is almost a character unto itself; much like Collateral (2004), Heat (1997), Training Day (2001) or End of Watch (2012). This is a phenomenal freshman effort for Director Dan Gilroy. The screenwriter, turned director also wrote Nightcrawler. I am glad the academy gave him a nod for this powerful action drama for the story at least. I think Nightcrawler easily makes my top 5 movies for 2014, along with Boyhood, Birdman, Whiplash and Grande Budapest. Dan Gilroy has a real unique visual style and has me anticipating his next effort. It reminded me a lot of Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive which I found to be ground-brakingly cool. Of course after Only God Forgives (2013), he kind of lost my interest. Maybe Giroy can pick up where Refn left off. I highly recommend Nightcrawler if it's your turn to pick a movie, its purchase worthy.
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