Member review

"Nightcrawler" is quite simply the best film I've seen all year. I could end this review with that one sentence but this film deserves a much more in depth analysis. It's the directorial debut of screenwriter Dan Gilroy and based on his first film he looks like he's got great things ahead of him. "Nightcrawler" is completely unique to any other film I've seen this year, it's an exciting thriller and most of all it features 2014's best performance courtesy of one of my all time favourite actors, Jake Gyllenhaal. "Nightcrawler" tells the story of Louis Bloom, a lonely sociopath who's in desperate need of money. He'll resort to anything to get some cash which is shown in the introduction of the film as he sells stolen manhole covers to the foreman of a construction site. On the drive home from completing this criminal act he notices a freelance film crew videoing a car crash, so they can sell it to the morning news. This is called nightcrawling. What Louis saw inspired him to become a nightcrawler himself and the rest of the film shows him videoing crimes and selling them to the news, each worse than the last and each with a higher pay cheque. This film's best feature is by far Jake Gyllenhaal's engrossing performance as Louis Bloom. I've been a huge fan of his ever since I saw him in "Donnie Darko".He was completely believable in this film and it was impossible for me to divert my attention away from him. Bloom is a character that can talk his way out of any situation and manipulate people to get what he wants, which is brilliantly brought to life by Gyllenhaal. It's a performance that flawlessly captures the attention of the audience and in a way tries to manipulate them the way that Bloom does to the other characters in the film. I think it should held in the same regard as other great antihero performances such as Ryan Gosling in "Drive" or Robert De Niro in "Taxi Driver". Most of all it reminded me of Jesse Eisenberg's performance as Mark Zuckerberg in "The Social Network" especially because of his fast-paced talking, complete lack of emotions and manipulative tendencies. The other cast members are very good as well especially Riz Ahmed's performance as Rick, Lou's down on his luck low life partner. He's very convincing in the role and he pulls of a terrific American accent, but Jake Gyllenhaal really steals the show. Dan Gilroy is already an established screenwriter and it definitely shows in this film from it's snappy dialogue and well rounded characters. There are some down right terrific monologues written for Bloom that Gyllenhaal reads perfectly. Despite already being an experienced screenwriter this Gilroy's first feature as a director and it's a very promising start. He's very good at building up tension and there's a rip roaringly exciting car chase near the end of the film, which is probably one of the reasons that critics keep comparing this film to Nicolas Winding Refn's "Drive". "Nightcrawler" provided me with genuine surprises that thrilled me throughout, which was refreshing to see as so many movies today are too predictable. Based on the performances in this film Gilroy seems to have good strength in the direction of his actors. This is a great start for Gilroy as a director and I've got a feeling that he's just going to get even better over time. This film brings up several themes on how the media tries to form public opinion, and how the news wishes to influence a certain type of opinion on the public. I think it also shows that there's still an animalistic blood lust in many people, as the news broadcasters buy the bloodiest footage they can because they know it'll get them viewers. It also shows how for a lot of people morals go out the window when it comes to getting money, but to me "Nightcrawler" is predominantly a twisted version of the American dream. Lou Bloom is a sick, uncaring individual that does horrible things to make his way to the top.....but he works really hard to make it there. This sick version of the American dream to me highlights how for a lot of people crime is the only option and also makes for some darkly comedic scenes which work perfectly with James Newton Howard's Hollywood-esque score. This film's ending left me wanting more and my immediate reaction was dissatisfaction, but upon further reflection I think that it wrapped things up rather effectively, but it still left the audience with an eery sense of uncertainty. Overall "Nightcrawler" is the most unique film I've seen all year as well as my favourite. It's an endlessly thrilling and promising directorial debut from Dan Gilroy and it boasts the best performance of the year on behalf of Jake Gyllenhaal as Louis Bloom. I would give "Nightcrawler a well deserved star rating of 5 out of 5 stars and would highly recommend it, especially to people who like to see something at the cinema that's not quite your average movie.