Nightcrawler: Review

As a part of Odeon's 'Screen Unseen' event, I was able to see the upcoming thriller Nightcrawler about a fortnight before its public release. The event works by the audience buying a ticket to the movie for a reduced price, but the catch being that the only information you are given is the start-time of the film, and the certificate it's been given. Luckily, I got to see a film I've been eagerly awaiting for quite some time, and I could not have been happier with the reward of my anticipation. 

Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal)

The film begins by introducing us to Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhall). Lou's lacking financially and socially, and is initially shown stealing copper wire so that he can sell it for an incredibly minimal profit. However, our protagonist soon learns of a fairly questionable job under the title of 'nightcrawling'. This basically consists of arriving at crime scenes mere moments after they are formed, and then filming the events unfolding so that the footage can then be distributed and sold to the highest bidder. Soon, Lou is nightcrawling for himself, but the constant praise for this dark, fringe job begins to encourage his frightening - and blatantly sociopathic - tendencies. 

As expected, Jake Gyllenhaal is incredible in the role of Lou Bloom. He perfectly conveys the complete lack of empathy Lou has for the victims he is recording, and establishes an unnerving tension which remains throughout the entirety of the film. Of course, each scene is loaded with a tense atmosphere, but the mere facial expressions and mannerisms of Lou lead you to believe that something genuinely terrifying is bubbling under his scarily natural façade. This continues throughout every moment of the movie, and is only escalated by Lou's hiring of an assistant in the form of a homeless man named Rick (Riz Ahmed). 

As the film progresses, Lou begins to become far more brave and risky with his nightcrawling, which leads to some fairly intense footage. The film never chooses to exploit this however. For example, one case which Lou arrives at is that of a home-invasion which resulted in a triple homicide. Now, the movie could have quite easily shown the gore in its all its brutal gory, but we instead catch glimpses of this through Lou's camera lens and screen. This subtle delivery is also attributed to the dark humour littered throughout Nightcrawler. It wasn't uncommon throughout the film for the entire audience to one moment be waiting on baited breath at what seemed to be unfolding, and the next laughing at a remark made by one of the characters. The comedy doesn't detract from the dark atmosphere the movie creates so successfully, but instead adds to it. It's never just there for the sake of it. Every time you laugh, it lets you see more into the twisted character of Lou himself, or become increasingly concerned for his 'sidekick' Rick. 

Verdict
I genuinely loved Nightcrawler. It was dark, brutal, and at times bordered on going slightly too far. But it only ever bordered on this. The director knew precisely when to cut a scene short just as it was becoming too graphic to the point of exploitative, or too humourous to maintain the menacing tone. It was an incredibly fun, exciting and occasionally frightening ride, and one which I imagine I'll be repeating as soon as possible. 

"If you want to win the lottery, you have 

to make the money to BUY A TICKET."