“Nightcrawler” Review

Jake Gyllenhaal’s character of Lou Bloom in Nightcrawler is an intelligent man of frightening morals. He has enough determination to slick talk and inch his way into money, but has issues building trust. With a blank slate for his future, he is inspired one night by a nosy cameraman shoving his lens into the scene of a car accident. The cameraman is constantly moving and hustling to make a few dollars off some shocking footage he can sell to the local TV news. It’s a fast-paced and flashy career that he becomes infatuated with for all its thrill. Maybe it’s the hours, but he wants this job so badly he is willing to do absolutely anything and everything to be the best at such a seedy job.

If you’re following this setup by traditional movie lore, it appears as though this is another rise-and-fall story of one man seeking to make his mark. But this is a movie about a character who is so sharp that it’s all about the rise. It seems like a given that one day he will end up the victim in his own line of work, but not with this movie. I’ve seen that movie a dozen times in the form of Scarface, Wall Street and a hefty handful of Martin Scorsese pictures. Rather than give us the inevitable finale, Nightcrawler simply skims over the beginning and gives us the juicy middle to this scummy businessman.

Lou, drawn to the glamorous life of a twilight crime paparazzi, quickly steals a bike and sells it for a camera and laptop. He hits the streets and cruises around until he finds a car crash. One night he is lucky and pokes his lens directly into the bloody aftermath. The cops push and shove him back, but he butts in long enough to get what he needs. When he enters one of the local LA news stations, he appears sheepish but committed. The news anchor pays him a modest amount and sends him on his way hoping to never see him again.

But Lou never stops. Even when challenged and threatened by a competing cameraman played by Bill Paxton, Lou continues to push becoming more crafty, vicious and slimy with his methods for making the most of his footage. He hires an intern and pays him peanuts. He breaks into crime scenes to get exclusive footage. He conceals vital crime evidence and information to arrive at a murder before it happens to be the first on the scene. When questioned about his content, he hides the juicy bits from the demanding feds.

What’s most frightening about Lou is his calculated mind and cool attitude for approaching every social situation. When Lou is intimidated by Paxton’s character to join his video crew, Lou simply replies with a calm smile stating how he has such an urge to beat the man in front of him. Lou later finds himself attracted to a female news producer, but his attempt at wooing is more a business deal than a friendly chat. He knows what he wants and thinks an awful lot about how he wants to get it.

Now how could a movie about such a psychopath be so appealing? The character of Lou takes a dark and illegal path, but it’s one that gets results in the messed up world of broadcasting. The local news organization could have turned down Lou’s disturbingly graphic footage the broke the law, but they did not. The down-on-his-luck intern could have turned tail and ran from such a dangerous place, but he did not.

The media world is portrayed as a deceptive game of skirting the law with no regard for human life. Lou just happens to be the best player and we let it happen. If there was more morality in the profession, Lou would be either a bum or arrested for his behavior. He is, instead, crowned for his efforts as the king of news videos. The methods of a madman are treated as someone just doing his job.

There is no downfall of the crazy cameraman. He doesn’t get shot in the line of duty, arrested by the police or spiral down a hole of drugs and alcohol. Lou gets away with everything and comes out on top. To kill him off or kick him down the mountain he built would be a cheat that implies some justice in this microcosm of crime and broadcast news. The good guys do not win in this industry. It’s the smart people who ascend to the top and the most intelligent one in this picture just happen be completely insane and immoral. For being both a commentary on scummy media and an intense character study of quietly evil men, Nightcrawler is an endlessly infatuating movie for how dark it presents its world that becomes frighteningly reflective of current media and a loss of morality.