Nightcrawler is a Brilliant Character Study of a Dispicaple Man

Rating: 9/10 (6 December 2014)

Some movies inspire you and restore your faith in greater things. Some movies make you laugh long after you've left the theater. Others deliver a white hot adrenaline rush. And then every once in a while there's a movie that makes you feel downright angry and disgusted. Not because the movie is bad or exploitive, but because it's about people who are downright loathsome. Nightcrawler is one of those movies. Its central character, Louis Bloom, is one of the most reprehensible characters ever put on screen, and he is absolutely fascinating in the most twisted way possible
When we first meet Lou, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, he's a small time lowlife paying the bills by selling whatever he can steal, while desperately trying to get regular work anywhere he can. But then a chance incident convinces him that he should be working as a freelance news cameraman, a nightcrawler. And he's right. After an almost comically bad start, he makes his break and starts climbing his way to the top of the business. And really how could he not; he's the perfect man for the job. From the start it's clear that he's shameless, cares about no-one else, and is a champion at spinning BS. He'll say anything to get an in, and go the extra mile to shoot whatever sells, even when little things like ethics or the law would stop his competitors.
He'll also do whatever- lie, cheat, threaten, blackmail- to get what he wants for his footage. And he doesn't just want money. He wants respect, power and certain other things that should never have to be given unwillingly. He's not just a scumbag, he is an absolute sociopath. And it rubs off on those closest to him, the very same people he's manipulating. It doesn't take much time for his wide-eyed, naïve assistant Rick to start silencing his conscience in return for a paycheck. Broadcast manager Nina on the other hand is nearly as selfish and just as cynical as he Lou is. Yet her need for his footage forces her to do things she never would have considered before. She should and does hate him for it, but like a battered housewife she can't give him up.
It really is amazing that such a detestable villain could be played by an actor as nice as Jake Gyllenhaal. I mean this is a guy who's become famous by playing the earnest, likable hero. But he's perfect here. In every scene he inhabits the character so fully that you have to keep reminding yourself that this really is Jake Gyllenhaal. His character the kind of person you're unlikely to meet outside of a Grand Theft Auto game, and yet it's so believable. And his appearance. Though he's fully recognizable but at the same time he looks so different, so slimy and conniving. It's like he's channeling the spirit of Peter Lorre, or maybe Uriah Heep.
Nightcrawler isn't just an excellent character study in moral bankruptcy. It's also a rather disquieting peek into the less savory aspects of TV news. Not that every station exec is as desperate and muckraking as Nina, or any cameraman is as rotten as Lou. He is a category of his own. But local stations really do fight like dogs over the latest footage of wrecks and shootings, the more shocking the better. The hard fact is that human misery sells and sometimes the story is more important than the truth. Watching this movie is like listening to Don Henley's Dirty Laundry. It will leave you very cynical about modern TV journalism, and not without reason.
The one real issue I have with this movie is that so much of it is hard to sit through simply because its protagonist is so unlikeable. It's almost stomach churning to see him get away with the things he does. Yet you can't stop watching because you can't wait to see him get what he deserves. I kept waiting and hoping that Lou would get busted and thrown in jail, or take one too many risks and get shot or run over. But the ending I got instead was so much more shocking and unsettling, even it if it wasn't satisfying in the conventional sense. It may not be the ending I wanted, but it was undoubtedly the one this movie deserved.