Nightcrawler | Little White Lies

Night­crawler

30 Oct 2014 / Released: 31 Oct 2014

A man in a dark jacket and trousers stands in a dimly lit, smoky room, holding a lit object.
A man in a dark jacket and trousers stands in a dimly lit, smoky room, holding a lit object.
4

Anticipation.

Unknown director but Jake Gyllenhaal is always worth a punt.

4

Enjoyment.

A monster movie for the modern age.

3

In Retrospect.

Cynical to a fault.

A bug-eyed Jake Gyl­len­haal goes full Rupert Pup­kin in this emi­nent­ly creepy satire on the hys­te­ria of rolling TV news.

If the most effec­tive hor­ror movies are those that quan­ti­fy a mon­ster in terms of its defor­mi­ty and destruc­tive­ness, then Night­crawler is the most chill­ing film to hit cin­e­mas this Hal­loween. Writer/​director Dan Gilroy’s impres­sive debut fea­ture is part Goth­ic fic­tion, part LA noir – all dread dripped and shad­ow cloaked. It is also, beneath its slick, icy sur­face, one of the most caus­tic, acute­ly-observed social satires of recent times.

In the City of Angels, a demon is stir­ring. We meet Lou Bloom (a gaunt, gab­by Jake Gyl­len­haal) on the wrong side of the tracks, moments before he car­ries out a vio­lent assault on a secu­ri­ty guard with unflinch­ing feroc­i­ty. Soon after he pulls over beside a smoul­der­ing car on the free­way, his gaze switch­ing from the fam­i­ly being pulled from the wreck­age to the TV cam­era crew that shows up to cap­ture the gris­ly inci­dent. Spy­ing a career oppor­tu­ni­ty, Bloom equips him­self with a bud­get cam­corder and a police radio scan­ner; before long he’s hurtling around town like a man pos­sessed with­out ever arriv­ing on the scene ear­ly enough to trou­ble the com­pe­ti­tion – name­ly Bill Paxton’s brash, self-styled night­crawler”.

After tip­ping the odds in his favour, Bloom lands a free­lance gig at a local TV news sta­tion, where his enthu­si­asm and graph­ic footage grab the atten­tion of Rene Russo’s rat­ings-hun­gry pro­duc­tion man­ag­er. Her ruth­less streak fuels his obses­sive nature, just as his eye for explic­it detail engen­ders a fla­grant dis­re­gard for jour­nal­is­tic ethics in her. To begin with, theirs is a mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial rela­tion­ship, but fate­ful­ly the pow­er bal­ance is about to take a pro­nounced shift.

From the open­ing scene, it’s clear that Bloom is some­one who is used to oper­at­ing on the mar­gins of soci­ety. What’s less clear is who this guy is – we don’t know where he’s from, what he does, where he sleeps at night, noth­ing. It’s arguable, how­ev­er, that we’re giv­en all the infor­ma­tion we need. Specif­i­cal­ly, that this sin­is­ter char­ac­ter is dri­ven by an over­pow­er­ing urge to find his place in the world. In this respect, Gyllenhaal’s neu­rot­ic per­for­mance is his most pow­er­ful­ly under­stat­ed to date. This is Jake Gyl­len­haal, remem­ber – love­able Jake! – who even when he’s play­ing com­plex, emo­tion­al­ly stunt­ed char­ac­ters does so with a degree of human­i­ty. Not so here.

Like a clean-cut Travis Bick­le, Bloom is instant­ly iden­ti­fi­able as a unique­ly cin­e­mat­ic anti-hero, an out­sider so detached from the real­i­ty he is appar­ent­ly try­ing to fit into that he doesn’t recog­nise the basic prin­ci­ples that apply with­in it. Regard­less of the fact he’s a quick learn­er with a well rehearsed sales pitch, hav­ing such a dys­func­tion­al per­son­al­i­ty would sure­ly negate any busi­ness acu­men or skills he might oth­er­wise be able to utilise. Yet in spite of his socio­path­ic ten­den­cies, Bloom’s abil­i­ty to rig the sys­tem and seduce those in posi­tions of author­i­ty allows him to get ahead. It’s this dual­i­ty that makes Night­crawler so authen­ti­cal­ly disturbing.

Bloom’s com­pul­sive, increas­ing­ly psy­chot­ic behav­iour is symp­to­matic of a soci­ety that con­sis­tent­ly rewards greed and pun­ish­es empa­thy. This is best rep­re­sent­ed through Riz Ahmed’s meek appren­tice-cum-side­kick, Rick, who rides shot­gun as Bloom schemes his way to the top, nev­er once man­ag­ing to inter­vene despite recog­nis­ing his employ­er as a man of ques­tion­able morals. Hap­less and eas­i­ly manip­u­lat­ed, Rick is lit­er­al­ly a pas­sen­ger in Bloom’s sick fan­ta­sy, his pas­siv­i­ty man­i­fest­ed in every bloody crime scene the pair fix­es their lens on. If we’re sup­posed to be repulsed by Bloom, how­ev­er, that doesn’t mean we’re nec­es­sar­i­ly on Rick’s side. At least, we shouldn’t feel com­fort­able in his shoes. Because when some­one is will­ing to turn a blind eye to sin and cor­rup­tion for the sake of a few quick bucks, you have to ask: who’s the real monster?

We leave Bloom at nar­ra­tive cross­roads. By all log­ic his twist­ed inter­pre­ta­tion of the Amer­i­can Dream should be start­ing to come unstuck by now, his upward mobil­i­ty at risk of being stunt­ed by his social mal­ad­just­ment. But Gilroy can’t resist tak­ing Bloom, and the audi­ence, deep­er into the night. It’s here that Night­crawler arrives at its most cyn­i­cal, unset­tling truth. Bloom is the prod­uct of a gen­er­a­tion that was sold short by the one that pre­ced­ed it, and yet still feels enti­tled to every­thing that was promised to it. As such he’s learned — through unlaw­ful means or oth­er­wise – that if you want to reach the top of the moun­tain you’ve got to be pre­pared to cut a few ropes along the way.

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