As he pulls his hair into a samurai spike on the top of his head and launches into a personal, employable sales pitch to a junkyard dealer that’s buying stolen metal wire from him — in a speech that appears to largely be learned from YouTube videos — Jake Gyllenhaal starts his enjoyably creepy performance in Nightcrawler. His Lou Bloom is part TJ Mackey from Magnolia, part Robert Pupkin in The King of Comedy and part Dignan in Bottle Rocket. He has a 5-year business plan, he’s got a TV news studio held figuratively hostage and he’s got a lived on the Internet, detached personality that seems to be a volatile cocktail of self-help and a lack of empathy for anyone that doesn’t assist in his own self-help.
Lou’s business plan is something that he stumbled upon when his attention was drawn to an accident on the Los Angeles highway. A makeshift TMZ-type TV crew (led by the always welcome, particularly when slimy, Bill Paxton) films the police pull the driver from the fiery wreckage and celebrate that they’re the first crew there and will be able to sell an exclusive. Lou then steals a bike from Venice Beach and parlays a deal at a pawn shop that includes cash and a trade for a small handheld camcorder and a police scanner. Lou’s first sale of recorded carnage is to a late-night segment to Nina (Rene Russo), a producer who busts her teams’ balls in such a way that she’s perpetually looking for a new job every two years. Nina leads with his bloodier footage. Her station is currently in last place.
And while an “it bleeds it leads” tv news critique has been done numerous times, Gilroy has his sights set on a film that’s more Brian De Palma than Network. As Lou works exclusively at night to feed Nina’s late night segments, he becomes a scavenger, searching for bodies and consuming their last breaths with his camera. In a world where people feel like access to everything private will create a better story he begins entering the homes of the victims. He becomes interested in framing shots. It starts with moving family photos on a fridge to being placed in between two bullet holes. It will escalate to creating shootout situations so that he can be there to film the high speed pursuit. And he legitimizes everything because they’re all a means to expand his business model.
Gyllenhaal lost weight for Nighcrawler. He’s slender as a snake. His eyes are puffy. We never see him eat. Even when he takes Nina out to a Mexican restaurant in an uncomfortable quid pro quos scene (maybe he’s been reading some men’s rights blogs). The reason why he’s closer to De Niro’s Pupkin than Travis Bickle is that, while he is lonely, he’s aware that one has to try to be likable in order to succeed. So he smiles a lot and often at the wrong time. He’s extra-composed and aware when he’s being filmed by a security camera. And he performs for people like he’s always mugging for an uncaring camera.
What makes Nightcrawler enjoyable is that Gyllenhaal finds humor in his role without ever making fun of his character. It’s actually a very funny performance. Lou can convince people that his methods are sound because he delivers them with a soft voice that can also aggregate various quick-source news articles on the spot for some sort of leverage. And longtime screenwriter, first-time director Gilroy (here armed with Paul Thomas Anderson’s main cinematographer Robert Elswit) films one hell of a meta shootout and police chase. Lou already seemed uncomfortably desensitized to dead bodies. But his interest in finding the right mis en scene for his increasingly staged scenarios that has dead bodies created in front of him is deliciously macabre.
But while that particular scene works so well in the film, because it combines a type of theater — focusing on that extra recording screen that adds some barrier to human empathy — where Nightcrawler falls short is in pacing in such a way that places limits on Lou as a fuller character. There are numerous scenes that are similar, carbon copies of previous scenes. Such as Lou filming wreckage, giving career pep talks to his “intern” (Riz Ahmed), and his attempts at entrapment on Nina. The repetitiveness keeps Gilroy and Gyllenhaal always on surface level. Nightcrawler can make your skin crawl but it doesn’t get under the skin. And penetrating just a bit more would’ve been as invasive and uncomfortable as the footage that Lou is seen so comfortable filming. As is, Nightcrawler is popcorn snuff. With a committed performance that’s more fun that it is complete.
But if Gilroy has a five-year plan as a director, Nightcrawler is a very good building block. Expansion is in his future for sure. And Gyllenhaal is already Executive Vice President.
Brian Formo is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel. You can follow him on Twitter at @BrianEmilFormo.
