Nightcrawler Movie Review (2014)

crime, drama, movie review, nightcrawler, thriller,

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Nightcrawler stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a man who is looking for a job. When he come across this kind of unknown profession, people who tried to get to crime scenes as soon as possible to get footage to themselves to the news, he gets really good at it. In fact, he gets too good at it, and eventually he gets way to good at it to the point where he himself is committing crimes. This is a movie about an insane, possibly psychopath, who’s extremely good at appearing like an awesome human being until you get to know him.
I was really excited to see this movie, not just because a lot of people buzzing about Jake Gyllenhaal performance, but I was starting to hear things about the screenplay. A lot of people I know told me that the screenplay was one of the best, and for that reason I was pumped when the movie started, and I’m just as pumped to talk about it now, cause this movie blew me away.
Jake Gyllenhaal gives probably the best performance in his entire life in this movie. He is a gaunt looking man, he lost a lot of weight for this role.
Let’s not focus on the weight loss though, that’s an easy way to get noticed sometime. Let’s focus on how he actually performs in this movie. I did not see Jake Gyllenhaal, I saw a character, I saw a different person, and when you don’t see the actor, that is a performance that’s worthy of an Oscar nomination.
I think he’s an actor that is making such good choices right now, movies like Prisoners (2013) and Zodiac (2007), and Nightcrawler confirms to me that this guy is just a genius actor.
And yes, the screenplay of this movie is absolutely magnetic. There are so many different dialogue scene which you can not stop focusing on these characters, particularly this journalist, because he is just so good as this guy who is becoming so obsessed with the idea of capturing the perfect crime on film and making money doing so by selling it to news channels. And as you watch that obsession take over him, you start to see him turn into what in my opinion is a psychopath.
I mean in all honesty, I was trying to figured out who’s the antagonist that Nightcrawler was until I realize that might be Jake Gyllenhaal. He might actually be the main villain of his on movie and yet you want to root for him somehow because the script is so well written that you actually get to that point where you are rooting for someone who’s doing terrible things. And it’s because you’re able to understand his character’s brain you’re starting to figure out how this guy works, and how the clock ticks in the place up there, and you’re really start to understand him as a person. And that’s why his performance works so well and why this screenplay is so good, because it’s so focus on character. And because of that this movie is endlessly watchable.
It’s a great looking movie too. The streets of LA have not look this good since probably Drive (2011). I’m not comparing to say that Drive is a better film, but Nightcrawler is a movie that so focus on its character and you’ll able to understand his obsession so well despite the fact that you know in your head this is not something I would ever want to do. You able to understand the obsession because of his performance, because of the excellent script and because of how well this movie shot.
I’ve never really been a fan of the news, I don’t like the news. Because as a person, I’m one of the people who looks at a shot on the news and says, how did they get that? What exactly was happening behind that camera? Because I do that with normal movies. It’s always bothered me in seeing this movie confirmed to me why it has bothered me. I don’t like the news for this reason, because this movie so accurately describes the seedy underworld of the evening news.
The writing was off the charge, the acting was explosive, the directing was very good. It could have been a little better. I can see if someone like Fincher or Spielberg had his hand on this movie, it would've been slightly more intense, but I will say that this movie has probably the most suspenseful finale I've seen all year. The last twenty minutes of this movie were absolutely nail biting.

Director: Dan Gilroy
Writer: Dan Gilroy
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Bill Paxton
Duration: 117 min