Gyllenhaal gives an award-quality performance as crazed and focused nightcrawler.

Rating: Null/10 (4 March 2015)

Years before this movie was ever conceived the term "nightcrawler" was applied to those guys who prowl the late night with police radio and video camera with one goal, to get to the scene of some gruesome accident or crime scene to get footage they can sell to a TV news group. This is a fictional story about them, and focuses on one of them.
Jake Gyllenhaal is Louis Bloom and as the movie opens we see him clipping chain-link fence. As a security guard approaches and with a smile on his face Bloom tries to talk his way out of the trespassing. Then he sees the man's watch, overpowers him, and steals his watch. Soon we see him at a salvage yard to sell his scrap steel and copper, including a few manhole covers.
That is about all we get as a hint to his backstory, he clearly has little money, drives a very old Tercel, but he studies a lot on the internet and has ambitions to do something that will become high profile. He has a great belief in himself, but absolutely no scruples.
One night when he happens upon the scene of a bad accident he stops and is amazed by the man filming the site. It is an activity he had no exposure to but, being a fast learner, figures it out and soon is getting footage that others miss, mainly because he has no scruples. And, as we eventually see, he is not at all above creating havoc so that he can get an exclusive.
Bloom is ruthless, with his pursuit of havoc, in the way he treats the young assistant he hires , and in pursuing a relationship with a news director twice his age (Rene Russo, who was actually 60) otherwise he just may take his exclusive footage elsewhere. And as the story progresses we see his fees getting larger and his cars getting fancier.
It is difficult to describe how good Jake Gyllenhaal is in this role. You get to really believe he is this half-crazed, egocentric prick who would, and does, throw anyone under the bus to get his footage. If he is first at a crime scene or accident he does nothing to see if he can help the injured, he just wants to get his footage.
My wife said there aren't any good, sympathetic characters here, and that is about right. But it is entertaining in its relentless drive to show Bloom's focus on what he wants and seems to always get. Louis Bloom