The most frightening thing about Jake Gyllenhaal in “Nightcrawler”—even more than those sallow, sunken cheeks, those googly eyes, and that unkempt hair tied into a greasy bun—is his smile.
They invented the word “creepy” for that smile, a goofy, confident grin that reaches its full breadth just when you’re starting to realize how deranged this guy really is.
Gyllenhaal’s bold, committed performance makes “Nightcrawler” one of the most entertaining movies of the year—though hardly the most profound.
The film seeks to convey the seaminess of local TV news, summed up by the phrase “If it bleeds, it leads.” The thing is: We already knew this. And frankly, there are so many disturbing things going on in the world right now that it’s hard to get too worked up about it.
But that doesn’t mean that “Nightcrawler”—think “Network,” transformed into a taut action film—isn’t a compelling and altogether impressive directorial debut for screenwriter Dan Gilroy (“The Bourne Legacy”). Gilroy starts slowly, then ups the pace until we’re truly breathless by the culmination of the final action scene.
It’s a doozy, gorgeously handled by cinematographer Robert Elswit, who makes nighttime Los Angeles a simultaneously chilling and beautiful place.
Gyllenhaal plays Lou Bloom, a forlorn petty thief when we first meet him, who scours desolate places like construction sites—deep in the night—to rip off barbed wire and manhole covers and then sell them for cash. But soon, on his nocturnal travels, Lou discovers the “nightcrawlers”—freelance cameramen who follow police scanner traffic to grisly scenes.
Transfixed, he sells his bike to buy a scanner and cheap camera, and he’s off. At first he’s lost, filming mundane things like someone taking a Breathalyzer test. But soon, he gets the point.
