Stylish and creepy, Nightcrawler will keep you at the edge of your seat

Rating: 9/10 (4 December 2014)

Finally an original story. Nightcrawler takes the audience into the world of a business that few of us know very much about. The world of nightcrawling, aka recording brutal and terrifying scenes of accidents and crimes in order to sell the footage to news stations. That is the premise of the film, which doesn't sound that appealing when you first hear it, but there is a twist to the story. The twist is our main character, Lou Bloom, played flawlessly by Jake Gyllenhaal.
Lou is what makes the story interesting. He is a very stubborn, focused and hardworking young man who is trying to discover what he is good at in life and make money off of it. After witnessing a camera crew shoot the scene of a horrific car wreck, Lou decides to take a crack at the business himself. In a business that already borders on the line of what is ethical and what isn't, Lou takes it a step further. Without spoiling the film too much, I will just say he manipulates everything and everyone around him in order to get an edge on the competition and get to the top.
Jake is superb in this role. In my opinion, it is his finest work to date. I always find myself awestruck when actors are able to transform themselves for a role. Frail and gaunt is how Jake pictured Lou when he read over his character, so he decided to drop 20 pounds by working out 8 hours a day and eating very little. I think it worked because Lou's appearance very much fits his character. And what is even more astounding about Jake is that for his next film, Southpaw, where he plays a boxer, he transformed himself again by gaining 15 pounds of muscle making him virtually unrecognizable. I find that amazing and I sincerely hope to see a Best Actor nomination go to him this awards season.
Dan Gilroy really caught my attention in his directorial debut. The scenes are stylish and creepy, just how I imagine the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles looks at 2 AM. He also filmed one of the best car chases I have seen in a movie in years. Very impressive work and I look forward to seeing what he does next.
Nightcrawler is easily one of the best films of 2014.