Gyllenhaal At His Creepy Best!........

Rating: 9/10 (3 August 2015)

I was surfing channels the other day, and came across that monstrosity piece of s**t of a movie, "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time" on TBS Superstation- ugh!- quickly changed channels! LOL By coincidence, the very same night I see this movie off Netflix, and it's Jake Gyllenhaal at his very creepy best! I don't know what exactly they did to his appearance- something with the eyes perhaps-??- to make them more bulgy- ?? (more so than usual?? LOL), but he was certainly playing against type in this. I would say this is my favorite role/film of his to date probably with "Brokeback Mountain" second.
Gyllenhaal plays a low-life living in L.A., scraping out a living stealing things like copper wire and selling to junk yards, who upon chance, gets the idea to become involved in the seedy end of crime journalism- taking video of car accidents, stabbings, murder victims, etc..- then selling to local news stations. He becomes involved with one of the managers/editors (Rene Russo), and develops an exclusive deal with the station. Bill Paxton is also good as a veteran, competing crime journalist.
This movie sorta reminded me of the films of the 1970s- with Gyllenhaal playing the type of leading man character you don't see too many of in today's more proper/PC films. He's the type of character you really don't like, but at the same time you sorta root for him, hoping things might turn out okay for him in the end. This is the type of role someone like Al Pacino or Robert DeNiro would've played, and a filmmaker like Brian DePalma may have directed back then-?? All I gotta say is a big WOW!- big thumbs up, and this may very well be my favorite film of 2014!