This Screenplay is Nuthin' to F@¢k With

Rating: 8/10 (8 March 2015)

How can anything be taken out of this review if I kiss-up to the movie for a few paragraphs? It can't. A guy I know who knows as much or more about film than I do was explaining how he thought this was a bad movie. For the sake of this, we'll call him Bartholomew. I'm going to refute Bartholomew's points while praising this gem of film-making. This was a well-paced, well-written screenplay that was only helped by the acting and directing. I told Bartholomew that he was wrong and I hope that Nightcrawler can be as well appreciated as the Hollywood behemoths that it went to the Oscars with.
Bartholomew said that he thought Lou getting a nice red Dodge was pointless and he thought it was weird that the car was always clean. Superficial things like this don't really change my thoughts on a movie. Honestly, I feel movies should have cool cars in the way that some guys feel porn should have women in it.
The movie had a great look to it and looked polished while still being gritty enough to be about crime. The addition of a chill, clean, electric guitar to the score was a good tonal bit to put in that furthered the whole vibe of the protagonist: calm. He's doesn't feel for the murder victims he sees. We're not meant to have sympathy for him. He's the catalyst screwing over all the other characters who we DO care about. It's okay to have a character without feelings because people like that exist. It's okay because he has objectives that play out in an interesting way.
Bartholomew's main point was that he felt Lou had no real character arc and his being a sociopath wasn't clear. Lou was a sociopath all the way through. He was manipulative in most scenes. It was kind of like a Walter White character journey, showing the audience what happens when someone's only goal is success at any cost.
Now, to play devil's advocate, I have to say this. The ending scores a few points on the predictability scale. Well, it's not so much predictable as it's not too far out of what you may expect. Is this an inherent knock on the movie? No. I still loved the ending, and if I think about it, there's not really another fitting way for it to conclude. The climax is still exciting and tense and feels right for the movie. The one real complaint I can have about this is Lou's partner. A character I felt infinitely sorry for. His partner was very present in the third act, but wasn't consistently there for a lot before that. This doesn't ruin the movie for me or anything, and it could even be argued as a good thing for the story. He's not important to Lou, so we only see him when his presence is in Lou's interests.
I enjoyed this movie in the way that some serial killers enjoy their work. I could find something to appreciate all the way through without trying too hard and each scene was great to see. We don't often see sociopaths as main characters, but our boy Jake Gyllenhaal is given that kind of role in Nightcrawler. And he completely kills it. Damn, that's some solid acting. I loved this movie to the point of giving it a 9/10.