The Nightcrawler Cometh

Rating: 8/10 (22 March 2015)

This 2015 thriller explores the character Louis Bloom (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) a thief turned freelance videographer when he notices the amount of money that was involved in the work. As Lou's skills increased, his ambitions and boundaries to cross ethical lines went further until the line no longer existed.
The overall theme of the film was how capitalism controls people to do evil things. With that in mind, the other much more heavy-handed theme was that the media is evil. The symbolism in this movie was not as subtle as the work Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange but not as blatant as M. Night Shyamalan 's Lady in the Water if that can give you a rough estimate.
The performance of Jake Gyllenhaal has to be the highlight of this movie supplementing the well-written dialogue. Many movies suffer on how to speak in the language of exposition but in Nightcrawler, the writers understand that exposition is very helpful in storytelling but one must know what kind of situation is appropriate to speak in that tongue. One notable example is during a conversation by Louis and Nina (played by Rene Russo) where Louis systematically tells her that he is not only in control of the ratings of the news but that he knows that she's desperate for his work because of her previous history as a media director. The lighting at night was done well for the most part for the exception of a few mistakes with shadows and crew members being visible but this is director Dan Gilroy's first film which some may say is not an excuse but even James Cameron made that mistake in the movie the Terminator and that was not Cameron's first film.
I have seen much of Jake Gyllenhaal's work and this by far is one on his best performances. I was definitely crept me out by his character Louis with his eerie demeanor. He looked much thinner in this film than any other movie I had seen with him and the weight loss worked well for the character. He looked like someone who was desperate enough to do anything for money or a scavenger rummaging for scraps.
The supporting cast played a very helpful role not necessarily making the waves that Gyllenhaal's performance but nonetheless helping with the transitions within the story. If I had to be nitpicky, I would say that the performance of the detectives officers seemed to be a little too daytime TV as opposed to cinematic. Rene Russo did well, though I do not think it was her best work but that might be because she was just overshadowed by Gyllenhaal.
The ending of the film was another thing I had mixed feelings on. Not that I did not like the ending, more on the fact that it's was predictable. Though I would not want to spoil this film for anyone I will say this, the film developed the main character so well that his actions in the third act should not shock you if you pay attention.
I would recommend this film to anyone because Nightcrawler was a well thought-out thriller with ideas properly executed and suspense that did not rely on startling you but rather creating an atmosphere. This movie makes me notice the footage company logos on car accidents and shootout on the news now which I had never noticed before. The movie tells the story of how the media is willing to do anything to get ratings.