EMM# : 17997
Added: 2015-07-03

Nightcrawler (2014)
The City Shines Brightest at Night

Rating: 7.9

Movie Details:

Genre:  Action/Adventure (Crime| Thriller)

Length: 1 h 58 min - 118 min

Video:   1920x800 (23.976 Fps - 2 133 Kbps)

Studio:

Location:


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NIGHTCRAWLER is a thriller set in the nocturnal underbelly of contemporary Los Angeles. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Lou Bloom, a driven young man desperate for work who discovers the high-speed world of L.A. crime journalism. Finding a group of freelance camera crews who film crashes, fires, murder and other mayhem, Lou muscles into the cut-throat, dangerous realm of nightcrawling - where each police siren wail equals a possible windfall and victims are converted into dollars and cents. Aided by Rene Russo as Nina, a veteran of the blood-sport that is local TV news, Lou blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story. Written by

Plot Synopsis:
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It's late at night in the city of Los Angeles. Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) has broken into a train yard to try and break off a chain link fence. An officer approaches him and demands to see some ID. Lou keeps his cool and shows it to him, and then he attacks the man and kills him. Lou later takes the broken up fence to a scrapyard and sells the fence to the yard's owner while trying to negotiate a higher price. He then asks the owner if he is hiring, since he can start immediately. He uses his motto, "If you want to win the lottery, you gotta have the money to buy a ticket." The owner rebuffs him and says he won't hire a thief.

A few cop cars pass Lou on the road. He pulls over to see what they're investigating. A car is on fire, and people are inside. A van of nightcrawlers - guys who record violent incidents at night for profit - pull up, led by Joe Loder (Bill Paxton). Lou sees Loder filming while two men pull a woman from the vehicle. Lou approaches Loder and asks about the job. Loder says it's a "flaming asshole of a job." Lou asks him if they're hiring and Loder says no.

Lou steals a bike on the beach the next day and goes to pawn it off. The shop owner will only go as far as $700, but Lou asks for $800 in store credit so he can get a camcorder and a police scanner. Using these, he listens to reports of incidents in the area. He pulls up to multiple crime scenes and is told to leave by the police. He manages to get good graphic footage of a man who was shot to death after a carjacking. The police turn Lou and another nightcrawler away, the latter who angrily curses Lou out for ruining his shot. Lou follows the man as he calls his employer and overhears how much the man is set to make off the footage.

Lou goes to the Channel 6 news station and meets news director Nina Romina (Rene Russo). He shows her and another station producer, Frank Kruse (Kevin Rahm) the footage, with good shots of the man dead and paramedics trying to revive him. Lou only makes $250 off the footage, despite trying to go way higher. He once again tries asking for a job or an internship position to no avail.

Lou interviews a young man named Rick (Riz Ahmed) for an internship position, making it seem like he's heading some big news station. Rick is practically homeless and struggling to find work, and he has little experience in this sort of field. Lou simply asks him if he has a phone with GPS, and Rick says yes. Lou hires him on the spot and tells him he'll get paid $30 a night.

Lou makes Rick read off directions to him as they go looking for incidents. Lou drives like a maniac and makes Rick nervous. He accidentally gives him wrong directions, and they arrive to the scene of a home fire too late, as paramedics have already wheeled the victim away. Lou is furious with Rick.

People are gathered around a shooting in a suburban home. Lou sneaks in through the back and into the kitchen where he rearranges pictures on the fridge to focus on the bullet holes and a shot of the neighbors talking to police. Nina loves the footage but Frank says it looks like Lou broke in. She still uses it.

Eventually, Lou and Rick are able to get a lot of new footage of horrifying incidents (with headlines like "toddler stabbed" and "drunk mom hits biker"), which Lou continues to sell to Nina. He gives her an impassioned speech about how he's come up with his business plan and how he has hoped to make a name for himself, which seems to almost move Nina.

Lou stands by Nina when two anchors from her station are set to report on one of the incidents that Lou got on camera. He mentions a Mexican restaurant and invites Nina to go with him. Nina declines, as she doesn't want to compromise their professional relationship, but Lou implies that he'll stop giving her good footage if she says no.

Loder finds Lou and offers him a spot on his team to deliver them some good footage. Lou turns him down, even as Loder persists. However, Lou very firmly rejects him, to Loder's anger.

Nina joins Lou at the Mexican restaurant. He makes it clear he wants more than a professional relationship but she says this is just a courtesy date. He reminds her that the station is the lowest rated station in the area, and she needs him just as much as he wants her.

Lou and Rick fail to arrive in time for another incident as Loder and his team beat him to the punch, leaving Lou with weak footage of a stabbing in Corona. Nina is pissed at him. Loder's coverage hits Channel 2 in all its glory. Lou smashes his bathroom mirror in fury. He goes to Loder's house and cuts the brakes on his van. This later leads to Loder crashing the van into a pole. Lou and Rick arrive in time for Lou to film Loder being wheeled away in a gurney, choking on his own blood.

A big break comes when Lou and Rick happen upon a shooting/break-in at a large mansion. Lou sees two men fleeing the scene. He enters the house and films the dead bodies in each room. One victim is on the ground gasping for breath as Lou walks around him. He delivers the graphic footage to Nina, at which point he makes a demand for $15,000 for the footage, and not a cent lower, and he also wants the anchors to give him credit as Video Production News, and for him to be recognized as a credible news source. He makes it abundantly clear to Nina that he's calling the shots now. The anchors at the station report on the footage while Nina tells them what to say.

Two detectives, Frontieri and Lieberman (Michael Hyatt and Price Carson), arrive at Lou's door to question him about the footage and if he saw the two men. He doesn't give a clear description of the men but he tells them that they were driving an SUV.

Lou brings Rick to catch the killers and phone the cops. Rick demands a raise if he's going to keep tagging along on these sorts of missions. He meekly asks for $75 a night when Lou states he could've gone higher. Together, they find the killers and follow them to a restaurant. Lou phones the cops and says one of them has a gun. Two cops arrive and enter the place. Two more show up, and the killers begin to shoot at them. The cops shoot the larger killer dead while the other one gets away. Lou and Rick follow them in an intense chase. The cop car is hit by another car. Another cop car catches up to the killer and they crash. Lou stops the car and goes to get his shot. He tells Rick that the killer is dead. Rick goes to film the killer, only to find him alive and with a gun. He shoots Rick three times before crawling out. The killer aims his gun at the cops and is shot dead. Lou films his corpse and then films a dying Rick. Rick says Lou knew the killer was alive, and Lou implies that he did this since Rick threatened to compromise this whole operation. Rick dies.

Lou brings all of this to Nina, who is enchanted by all the gruesome imagery. Detective Frontieri comes to the station and demands to have the footage as it is evidence, but Nina refuses to surrender the tapes. Frontieri later interrogates Lou, knowing he withheld information from them since he knew what the killers looked like. Furthermore, he remains unmoved by Rick's death, but he sticks by his word without flinching, and he is left free to walk.

Frank approaches Nina and says the break-in at the mansion was really a drug robbery since there were multiple bags of cocaine found in there. He says this is the real story but Nina is focusing on the car chase and accident. Frank tells her she sounds like Lou, to which she replies that Lou has inspired them to reach higher.

Now, Lou has established Video Production News with news vans and three interns. He gets then ready with their tasks, and adds that he won't make them do anything he won't do himself. With that, he guides them into the night to snap more footage of what the people really want to see.
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trublu215 from United States
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If you take the slick look of Drive and the satirical wit of Network, you get Nightcrawler. This film is a genius first film for director Dan Gilroy, it is darkly comedic, surprisingly disturbing and is brilliantly acted. The film tells the story of Lou Bloom, a freelance videographer who covers the crime world in LA for a local news station and ruthless editor played by Rene Russo. It isn't before long until Bloom's demented job overtakes his life, making him colder and colder the deeper he goes. The film plays like a twisted bloody version of Network and has the satirical wit to back it up. Jake Gyllenhaal is utterly fantastic in this film. Lou Bloom is a role that he is completely submerged in and it oozes through every frame as our dislike for Bloom intensifies throughout the film. But what this film does best is not make us particularly like Bloom but it makes us wonder what he is willing to do next. And trust me, his actions get as sick and as shocking as they come. Bloom is a depraved individual and Jake Gyllenhaal deserves a hell of a lot acknowledgment for this role because he pulls off the tricky task of making the audience care about a character that is truly unlikeable and does so with not one false note. It is truly mesmerizing to see. The supporting cast including Rene Russo and Bill Paxton are absolutely great in this film and deliver career bests here. The cinematography also is top notch here, blending the awesome pallets of Drive with a bitter cold makes for an engaging view and makes it hard for you to peel your eyes from the screen. Writer/Director Dan Gilroy is someone to watch, especially coming out of the gates with a film filled with sheer and raw velocity like this one. It is not only an impressive first film but a brilliant film all around. I highly recommend it.

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LTSmash14 from Canada
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This movie was both fun and terrifying. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance as Lou Bloom will certainly frighten you. He is brilliant when paired with the amazing monologue style rants written for him.

Lou Bloom is a driven man reminiscent of a sociopath who finds he has a talent as "nightcrawling" in that he takes videos of true crimes as they are happening to be broadcast on the news. His motivation and seeming lack of empathy allow him to break through and take the controversial images, and sell them with a strong aptitude for negotiation.

As a character, he grows more and more "motivated" and seems to learn his business in such a way to bring him amazing success, but to the determinant, perhaps, of his assistant and the victims of these crimes.

The writer/ director of this movie (making his directorial debut) certainly understands fear and comedy. The simplest scene was made into a laugh by the angles and cuts.

It's funny, and enjoyable, but still terrifying enough to feel like a real horror thriller.

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Steve Pulaski from United States
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"Nightcrawler" is the kind of film that will catch audiences by surprise with its painstaking thoughtfulness, and features the kind of lead character that will be discussed in film circles who don't detest American cinema and actually give it the benefit of the doubt. The film plunges us into the dark, seedy world of a nightcrawler, somebody who, often working freelance with his or her own equipment and schedule, patrols the streets of crowded cities with multiple police scanners searching for recently-committed crimes in the neighborhood, like rape, shootings, murders, car accidents, and so forth. The object of a nightcrawler is to get candid and intimate shots of the ugliness that plagues these scenarios as quickly and as neatly as possible and sell them to news stations or eyewitness programs to turn quick profit. Job requirements include possible insomniac, lack of emotional connection or any immediate empathy to tragedy or horror, exceptional navigational/driving skills, and a load of free time.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Lou Bloom, a man at rock-bottom living in Los Angeles, selling scrap metal to get money before eventually turning to the nightcrawling business. He teams up with Rick (Riz Ahmed), a young man desperate to make money to keep a roof over his head, who helps navigate Lou's routes as a nightcrawler and learns of numerous police codes to help Lou decipher the police scanner jargon. Together, the two make for an amateur nightcrawling team, turning profit by selling the footage – expertly shot, analyzed, and even occasionally manipulated by Lou – to Nina (Rene Russo), the station manager of a severely failing news station that is in dire need to regain viewership.

Ultimately, "Nightcrawler" juggles two tricky but immersing features with its material, simultaneously giving us a look into a grimy and often dirty gig as somebody who is essentially a voyeur into the most vulnerable time of the people he meets and posing frightening commentary on contemporary news. The nightcrawler is not looking to help or to provide encouragement; he's there to get his shots and move on, hoping to turn as large of a profit as he can. We see Los Angeles in the light of what could be classifiable as a contemporary film noir, in dark, sometimes shadowy-photography and dingy environments that reveal an ugliness to a city that is normally captured as very beautiful and ideal in terms of climate. Director Dan Gilroy and cinematographer Robert Elswit (a frequent collaborator of Paul Thomas Anderson) do everything in their power to subvert our ideas of Los Angeles and focus on transitory locations that show the ugliest of human events in such a way that is beautiful and captivating thanks to crystal-clear photography.

The other feature "Nightcrawler" toys with is the contemporary exploration of journalistic ethics and how, with local cable news competing with so many twenty-four hour news stations, who, in turn, are also battling more rapidly-updated social media websites, the manipulation of news is ever-present on Television. News programs, like sitcoms, reality shows, and sports events, are a game of numbers and those numbers are ratings – something that "Nightcrawler" makes depressingly clear to us. A crucial scene to this message comes into play when Lou has shot and sold the defining tape of his career and has worked to manipulate it for personal gain. He watches as Nina plays the tape on the air, directing the news anchors in such a specific way in terms of language and mannerisms that we see the fear-mongering happen right before our eyes.

On top of all the social commentary, we see amazingly realistic crime scenes and car accidents to boot. Perhaps it's the lack of intimacy many directors lend to these situations, often showing a car accident, and characters limping and trudging along with little bloodshed, but "Nightcrawler" details these scenes with an incredible eye for attention and realism. Gilroy makes us the voyeur and gives the window into these car accidents that we glance over to see but not entirely anticipate or really want to see. The attention to detail in these seems is simply exquisite and uncommonly believable.

"Nightcrawler," in addition, features a wonderful performance by Gyllenhaal who, like his co-star Paul Dano in last year's "Prisoners," plays detached and empty with such conviction, and channels something of an inner-Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Owning Mahowny," showing his character's complete fulfillment when obsessing over his job and his work. Even Riz Ahmed shouldn't be overlooked here, playing the overworked and under-appreciated assistant to Gyllenhaal's Lou in a role that could've been an empty, and even distracting, side role. The entire project is rich in commentary, performances, and environmental beauty that it could easily be one of the most complete films of the year.

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pschofield-292-682589 from United Kingdom
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This is one of the few films that has held me in my seat from beginning to very end even when half way through I desperately needed to visit the bathroom . The storyline, script, filming and acting combine into the perfect storm of a brilliant film. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a character, on what I can only describe as at the higher end of the autistic spectrum and deserves an Oscar nomination for this role. His character is perfectly matched by Rene Russo playing the role of her career as the success seeking ageing news editor. And a shout too for Riz Ahmed as Rick, Gyllenhaal's assistant. What a contrast to "The Judge" which I saw last week, "Nightcrawler" is superior on every level, go see !

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markgorman from United Kingdom
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You leave the movie theatre with a slightly sick feeling of guilt after watching Nightcrawler. Guilt that you actually enjoyed this rather original movie-making set in an ethical and moral vacuum. In that sense the movie is entirely ironic. You shouldn't be enjoying this stuff.

It's an exposition of entirely greed-induced (financial and ego driven) naked ambition that rivals Wolf of Wall Street for it's blithe abandon of normal ethical practice.

Gyllenhaal, as Louis Bloom, almost cadaverous after his dramatic weight loss for the part, is as unsympathetic a movie character as you've seen in a very long time. His back story, which is precisely zilch, renders him a character in search of a meaning. A loner, a drifter, a thief, unemployed (unemployable is the truth) and entirely without remorse - emotion for that matter - stumbles upon a freelance career as an, at first hapless then really rather good, ambulance chasing 'scene of the crime' news cameraman.

Starting with motorway crashes and graduating to suburban crime scenes (where the threat of middle America being intruded upon by 'Hispanics' and other Liberal American ethnic minorities) he captures more and more challenging newsreel material that feeds the sensation-lust of an LA loser News Station's News Editor, Nina Romina, played deliciously by Rene Russo.

Romina's sponsorship of, and belief in, the expert blagging of Bloom feeds his desire for greater success and indeed for Romina herself. In a toe curling 'date' at a camp Mexican restaurant Bloom lays it on the line with Romina in a scene of toe-curling embarrassment. It's as if Gyllenhaal is playing for laughs, but he's deadly serious.

Throughout, Gyllenhaal commands the screen. The Nightime lighting constantly picking out his skeletal, eye bulging look that makes him look like the devil incarnate. This truly is an evil character and Gyllenhaal's trademark smirk only adds to the perverse sense of evil pleasure he is gaining as his success mushrooms.

A recurring theme in the movie is his watering of a pot plant in his flat. It's as if it's the only living thing he cares two bucks about. Certainly his hapless sidekick/assistant Rick, played by Riz Ahmed, has next to no chance in this little hothouse world of emotion-free ambition.

Gyllenhaal's faux management style 'development' of Rick is at times darkly amusing but usually just plain vacuous and ironic given that he draws from real world self help and management lingo that's bad enough in the corporate world, but downright bizarre in this micro universe.

The car chases are gripping edge of seat affairs, the plot, although it has holes in the final reel (quite big ones I felt) is nevertheless highly original and unfolds at a steady pace.

The conclusion was, to my mind at least, a little disappointing, but aside from this a good, dark, star vehicle for Jake and possibly a step towards another best actor nomination.

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Matt Greene from Panama City, Florida, United States
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From Welles to De Niro to Hanks to Bale, Hollywood has a history of actors going through extreme body transformations. While Gyllenhaal's intense weight loss will easily fit this trend, to only focus on that part of his commitment to Nightcrawler would be overlooking how impressively gone he is as Louis Bloom, the focus of this intense character study about an overlooked and disturbed individual. It's not a particularly "pleasant" film, and the pacing is far from quick, but the tension between Louis and his world progresses so beautifully as to pin you right to your seat. Nightcrawler is an effectively scary, uncomfortably funny, and stylishly gritty tour de force. The premise, plot and protagonist are truly unique: a sociopath becomes a freelance news-cameraman, stopping at nothing to succeed. Though his arc seems implausible, Gilroy crafts it smoothly, and Gyllenhaal's disturbed perfection make it hard NOT to believe. His unsettling bug-eyed expression and breathtakingly inappropriate smile are magnetic. Much like Scorsese's Rupert Pupkin, Bloom seems to believe he is the star of his own story: delusional, bull-headed, and respectably determined. Luckily, there is more here than just Gyllenhaal; powerful set-pieces resound, and the beautifully cool ambient guitar score is among the best of the year, complimenting Gyllenahaal's uneasy intensity. Even the camera consistently reminds us where Bloom stands in the deeply LA locale. At the heart, it's smartly calling out our propensity for praising characters for their desires, reminding us that compassionless ambition is extremely dangerous. For our fame-starved culture, Nightcrawler is a good message within a great movie with an even greater lead performance. A true don't-miss!

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Knox D Alford III (knoxiii)
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Nightcrawler is slang. I will not ruin or spoil anything in this review. Jake Gylenhall has never been better. His character must have been incredibly hard to play, and you will see why. There is a reason this Thriller & Drama opened on Halloween. His character is ambitious to a fault & highly intelligent. He interacts most often with Rene Russo & a man he calls his intern. If you thought Julius Caesar was ambitious or Alexander the Great, this character must have the same motivation to succeed minus the goal of conquering the world. Needless to say he is driven. Russo is also ambitious, so they make a good team. The difference is how far each is willing to cross the lines of morality, legality & humanity.

The movie is original in every sense. There has never been a movie similar in the character or the situation, and the movie makes an open commentary about an important but not political aspect of American society. To say it was gripping would be literal. I looked down at one point, and I was clutching my outer thigh. The movie is tense & intense. Every move seems known to Gylenhall but not to anyone else. If you like entrepreneurs, this movie will appeal to that in one aspect. Overall, it is definitely a Thriller full of danger & illegality. It is Gylenhall versus the world, if he were a diplomat & the world represented achieving his goals. That's his character around others. When left unwatched, even for a moment, he devolves into a character that does whatever it takes.

See this movie for the originality. See it if you enjoy thrillers. See it because he gives the best acting performance of his life in a character with many sides. See it for fun. See it for a cool fast car. Or, the fact it is tracking above 8 stars out of 10 which is about as good as it gets on IMDb, considering that is the average of thousands & thousands of ratings by people as diverse as patrons watching on a Washington, D.C theater. From that number you can safely predict it's very likely you will find it as highly entertaining as the international average (plus or minus 1 star). In my estimation, I reserve a 9/10 rating for the best of the best. 10/10 stars are for the greatest movies. This is easily the best of the best.

One friendly tip: If you are on heart, or anxiety medication, take it as scheduled or if it's as needed, make sure it's within reach.

Knox D. Alford, III

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Mek Torres from Los Banos, Laguna, Philippines
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Nightcrawler seems like a satire to modern television news about how they choose their leads or often seek for more ratings by entertaining their viewers rather than aim straightly to the facts. But there is a much interesting story beneath here and that is the main character, Louis Bloom. The guy that easily manipulates people with his sinister tricks of persuasion. Everything else may just be the natural world of crime and accidents, but in the eyes of this character, the experience is made far stranger and oddly fascinating. This provides a compellingly menacing and provoking piece of commentary which results to such engrossing film.

What the plot mostly does is to fully absorb the viewers into the character of Bloom by studying his sociopathic behavior and the words coming out from his mouth. He is a charming young man with a dark intention hidden behind his grins. He pushes the limits of the law and his own safety, only to accomplish on what he must do in the job, even if it risks many people's lives. The actions of this antihero is ought to feel terrifying on how it affects to both the business he's working on and the society he is watching. The media's side however is more of a picture of cynicism on how they broadcast the scariest stories of the city, giving the people fear so they could earn more viewers out of the concern. It just breaks down on how the evil of their success is disguised as their own ethics.

The filmmaking perfectly captures their night's work. You couldn't clearly see the scenario they shoot unless you watch them on a video footage. The violence and peril they witness are shown without any hint of sympathy, since they only use them for the news show. The horror of these gritty scenes once again belongs to the nightcrawler. Jake Gyllenhaal is one of the biggest highlights here. His character obviously has the personality of a psychotic villain; he is mostly bluffing, and by the dashing enthusiasm he shows to the people around him, you probably may not know when his inner total madness will burst out from his frightening eyeballs, and that provides more tension than you expect. This is one of the Gyllenhaal performances that will be remembered for his career.

Out of common sense, this story may lead its main character to a moral about how much he is taking this job too far, probably destroying his humanity. But no, this guy is relentless, almost inhumane, and his style in fact helps his career grow bigger, which turns out we are actually rooting for a villain. And that probably pictures to some oppressive ambitious beings out there behind some system. This is where things go in the end, bringing an outcome to a social satire. You can spot a lot of relevance even when some of the situations get a little out of hand. Nightcrawler is something else than a sentiment, what we must focus here is Lou Bloom: a new, possibly iconic, movie vigilante, except the only skin he is purposely saving is himself and his career.

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Chrismeister from Sheffield, England
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Nightcrawler from the very beginning is not a traditional Hollywood film. It certainly does not follow the narrative of one and even though it has the three-act structure we are all familiar with, it spins them around. This is particularly evident in the third act, incredibly suspenseful with a brilliant, almost anti-climax. Suspense is the main key to this film's success, it build and builds to the point where the last twenty minutes of the film are completely unpredictable. Dan Gilroy in his directorial debut here has shown a real understanding of how to keep an audience engaged and following a character who isn't an easy man to spend a great deal of time with. Gilroy's screenplay is fast paced and one of the finest this year. The script focuses the audience on the characters, Louis Bloom particularly yet the supporting characters are just as impressive by Bill Paxton and Rene Russo alike. It doesn't follow the rules of a typical script, we are introduced instantly to a criminal and this man is supposed to be our protagonist. Yet what becomes clear is that there is not a protagonist in Nightcrawler, Jake Gyllenhaal's Louis Bloom is the antagonist. He can be described as nothing less than a psychopath and his portrayal by Gyllenhaal is one of his greatest performances. He is very gaunt here, losing a lot of weight for the role, however that is not the main reason for his impressive performance. Gyllenhaal is an actor who continues to impress me; his work in Enemy from earlier this year was just as brilliant. He has chosen excellent roles in films such as Zodiac, Prisoners and End of Watch. The cinematography is also fantastic, night-time LA has not looked this good since 2011's Drive. All these elements come together to make a captivating piece of filmmaking, a film I expect will be discussed more as time goes on.

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Sevenmercury7 from United Kingdom
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Jake Gyllenhaal's Lou Bloom is an instant classic scuzzball character. He echoes the memorable sociopaths played by Robert DeNiro in his prime (Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy and Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver), but he's less sympathetic than either of those. A parasite on the prowl, Bloom soon fixates on a career ideally suited to his amoral loner/ go-getter character—as a crime journalist during L.A.'s night hours. He listens for crimes in progress on his police scanner, speeds to the scene, and then angles for the most shocking, risqué footage he can possibly get away with.

New colleagues Nina (Rene Russo), the struggling news producer he goes to first, and Rick (Riz Ahmed), a desperate "intern" railroaded into the nightmare, are exploitable because they want what Bloom can give them—money, work, success. The risks he takes and the lines he crosses are mainly ethical ones at first, but he quickly realises the quickest way to make a name for himself is to get truly sensational footage. The kind that requires taking bigger risks, and eventually endangering lives.

Bloom is the most detestable character I've seen in ages. He's a soulless cockroach rummaging through the misfortunes of others, ravenously feeding off violent crimes, sometimes while they're still happening. But the news station keeps on buying what he's selling. Viewer ratings spike with each successive horror scene that hits the air.

Writer/director Dan Gilroy makes us squirm from start to finish here because Bloom is so queasily familiar. We all know people who share his traits, even if they don't take them to such extremes. He's society's Frankenstein's monster, made from all the worst parts of capitalism. He'll achieve success by any means, and he's proud of that.

With End of Watch and Prisoners, and now Nightcrawler, Gyllenhaal is finding the sort of edgy, dangerous roles relished by great actors of the 1970s, and he's attacking them with gusto. This might be his best performance yet. The film itself is a darkly comic treat. It's tense and unsettling as a thriller, but the most fascinating part is seeing how far this scumbag will take his obsession, and how much we'll allow him to get away with.

Jake Gyllenhaal lost 20 pounds for his role. This was Gyllenhaal's own idea, as he visualized Lou as a hungry coyote.
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During the scene where Jake Gyllenhaal talks to himself in the mirror, Gyllenhaal got so into the scene that the mirror cracked, cutting his hand. He had to go to the hospital for 14 stitches, returning to the set after being discharged.
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Jake Gyllenhaal's character blinks very rarely. Gyllenhaal has used this method in his work before with his role as title character Donnie Darko (2001).
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To create Lou's gaunt appearance, Jake Gyllenhaal worked out for up to 8 hours a day and ran or biked to the set everyday.
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Jake Gyllenhaal memorized the entire movie like a play.
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Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed rode along with actual "nightcrawlers" in Los Angeles to prepare for their roles.
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The coyote theme became so strong that it was considered as an alternate title.
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Director Dan Gilroy on the impetus for the film: "I think to some degree it's certainly an indictment of local television news, but I'd like to cast a wider net in the sense that all of us really watch these images. I would hope that maybe a viewer would take it further and maybe go, "Why do I watch these images and how many of these images do I want to put into my own spirit?'"
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The music cues in the movie represent the music cues in Lou's head.
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Rene Russo is married to the film's director, Dan Gilroy.
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The two actual "stringers" that Gyllenhaal and Ahmed trained with in preparation for the film make a small cameo when Louis arrives to the structure fire too late near the beginning of the film. They are the two last ones to leave the scene.
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Directorial debut of Dan Gilroy.
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When Rick meets with Lou for his job interview, they sit in a diner. The diner they are meeting in was also used in the 2011 film "Drive" where the main characters love interest also works at the diner.
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The film's climax was filmed on Laurel Canyon Blvd. in the San Fernando Valley, only several blocks away from the location of the infamous shootout in 1997 between two heavily armed bank robbers and L.A. police, in which both robbers were killed.
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The movie Jake Gyllenhaal is watching on his TV, when the knight's helmet is lobbed off, is The Court Jester (1955) featuring Danny Kaye.
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After the scene in which Lou shows the newsroom his Horror House footage, the broadcast director cuts to break on a Bird's Eye food commercial featuring wolves. The movie follows this theme of predatory animals in its depiction of Lou, and it's even fitting that the commercial ends with the slogan "Dinner is Complete", as the Horror House story is seen as Lou's big break into the world of Stringer journalism; and is therefore, arguably, equated with Lou satisfying his hunger for the moment.
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The billboard for eyeglasses that Lou passes is reminiscent of the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby; both stories address the idea of the American Dream and its flaws.
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Riz Ahmed's favorite movie role after Four Lions (2010).
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In one scene where Rick is filling up Lou's car with gas, a poster for the Tom Hanks film Captain Phillips (2013) can be seen in the background.
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The red car Jake Gyllenhaal drives in the second half of the film is a Dodge Challenger SRT. He starts off driving a Toyota Tercel.
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Jake Gyllenhaal did most of his own driving scenes, including the climatic car chase at the end.
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Although a sexual relationship is alluded to in a couple of conversations between Louis and Nina, the two actors never make any physical contact with each other, aside from shaking hands.
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Although Lou mentions he and Nina had sex, the sexual tension is only implied throughout the film.
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Body Count: 8
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sociopath|ethics|journalism|tv news|tv station|crime scene|video camera|tailing a suspect|employer employee relationship|car crash|news footage|journalism ethics|capitalism|police scanner|local news|crime scene photographer|gps|evidence tampering|coercion|murder|robbery|thief|death of partner|shot multiple times|police car rollover|police car crash|police chase|crashing through a window|raise|stakeout|performance review|morgue|drunken man|business competition|self taught|cynicism|cynicism about love|cynical man|news business|news broadcast|speeding car|graphic violence|violence|freelancer|looking for a job|2010s|license plate search|discovering a dead body|running a red light|portfolio|camcorder|building fire|police code|internship|car fire|filmed killing|greed|deception|shot in the shoulder|shot in the back|jumping through a window|one word title|manipulation|shootout|police officer shot|car chase|character repeating someone else's dialogue|shot to death|shot in the chest|shotgun|multiple homicide|home invasion|criminal|obstruction of justice|corpse|sabotage|police station|fame|threat|dodge challenger|montage|police detective|police investigation|stolen bicycle|pawnshop|trail of blood|blood|diner|moral corruption|critically acclaimed|news anchor|news report|apartment|stolen watch|punched in the face|pistol|venice beach california|lapd|security guard|job interview|mansion|plane crash|police car|police officer|chinese restaurant|police radio|interrogation|freeway|control room|news editor|paycheck|extortion|bicycle|proposition|mexican restaurant|news reporter|journalist|directorial debut|los angeles california|written by director|death of friend|reference to friedrich nietzsche|reference to moses|satire|reference to twitter|crib|laptop|
AKAs Titles:


Certifications:
Argentina:16 / Australia:MA15+ (2014) / Brazil:14 / Canada:14A (British Columbia) / Chile:14 / France:U (with warning) / Germany:16 / Hong Kong:IIB / India:A / Ireland:16 / Ireland:15 (DVD rating) / Italy:VM14 / Japan:G / Mexico:B-15 / Netherlands:16 / New Zealand:R16 / Philippines:R-16 / Portugal:M/14 / Singapore:PG13 / South Korea:18 / Sweden:15 / Switzerland:14 / UK:15 / USA:R (certificate #49147)