Pictures in the dark

As a creepy sociopath in "Nightcrawler," Gyllenhaal is great in a film that’s just good

There was a time when I really lamented the fact that Jake Gyllenhaal didn’t take over the Peter Parker role in Sam Raimi’s “Spiderman.” Tobey Maguire famously had a rough go of the physicality involved with playing the physics-defying web slinger. And, the fact is, I thought Gyllenhaal was the better fit. But hindsight is always 20/20 and now it seems like providence that Raimi stuck with his star. Otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten Gyllenhaal’s Jack Twist (“Brokeback Mountain”), his Robert Graysmith (“Zodiac”) or his Coulter Stevens (in Duncan Jones’s under-seen “Source Code”). 

And we also wouldn’t have gotten one of the creepier characters in recent cinematic memory in Gyllenhaal’s latest, “Nightcrawler.”

That would be Louis Bloom (Gyllenhaal), a sociopathic (at the least), yet lighthearted punk who’s out to make his mark on the world. But he could be anyone, because what he presents to everyone is a façade.

When we meet Louis he’s stealing copper wire and manhole covers, and possibly killing for a nice watch. It quickly becomes clear that young Louis Bloom wants to be a small-business owner. He just doesn’t get the rules of unregulated, free market, Republican nirvana. He doesn’t understand why the scrap metal guy (Marco Rodríguez) will bone him on the market price of copper and not consider his impassioned plea to legitimately start at the bottom and work his way up (“I don’t hire thieves,” is the inarguable response). Bloom’s cold calculation has no effect on a world controlled by men beholden to the veneer of legitimacy.

The rebuffed Bloom, who lives alone with a plant and a television in a ratty L.A. apartment, serendipitously drives by a serious car accident. He meets Joe (Bill Paxton), a “nightcrawler,” essentially a freelance videographer with a police scanner who sells graphic footage of accidents and crimes to the local news. “If it bleeds it leads,” is Joe’s Captain Obvious advice to Bloom. Smelling an opportunity to profit from human suffering, Bloom­—like any hardcore capitalist with a hard-on for success—invests in a shitty video camera and a Radio Shack police scanner and takes his shot at the American Dream.

That comes in the form of Nina (Rene Russo), an ethically questionable news producer, who lets Bloom get his foot in the door. As their symbiotic relationship grows it becomes clear that, while Nina is as desperate an opportunist as Bloom (she’s fighting a ratings war), only one of them is truly twisted.

Writer and producer Dan Gilroy makes his directorial debut with “Nightcrawler.” He’s most acclaimed for adapting the novel Immortality Inc. into the fun, if dumb, Emilio Estevez/Mick Jagger-starrer, “Freejack,” back in 1992 (also starring Rene Russo), and for scripting the last Jason Bourne entry for his brother, director and writer Tony Gilroy.

With “Nightcrawler,” Dan Gilroy takes auteur credit, and in that capacity he succeeds at crafting a moody, tense and atmospheric thriller. He has also made an incredibly cynical indictment of media sensationalism that rings hollow for anyone who actually watches the news. I’m generally fine with that. The stats for local news that Bloom recites are correct, concerning the ratio of fear coverage vs. what City Hall is up to. The way the media incites fear and division (Ebola, terrorists, poor people taking your shit) is certainly rife for skewering. But there’s a willful, Lars von Trier-esque ignorance to how things really work, because to dwell on reality would subvert the coldly dystopian themes and satirical jabs Gilroy is going for. 

There’s no way any legit news organization would run the footage Bloom brings them. And the way the film indicts its only main female character (who succumbs to Bloom completely while subordinate men raise red flags, mirroring the sensible rationale of every man who knows Bloom is bad news) is somewhat off-putting. “Nightcrawler” is admittedly more subtle and sophisticated than David Fincher’s bluntly satirical takedown of Nancy Grace in “Gone Girl,” which at least featured one other woman who was morally bankrupt. But even Paxton’s Joe, who is the worst kind of leech (one with made-up scruples) is less craven than Nina, having the sense to tell Bloom to go fuck himself when he realizes how calculating he is.

Gyllenhaal excels in that capacity. Gone is the charm he exudes in roles like “Jarhead” and “Love & Other Drugs,” traded for a compellingly false front. His smile is just a reptilian defense mechanism here. If Paxton is the warm voice of reason in their corrupt underworld then Gyllenhaal is the polite devil—and a chillingly believable one. He’s scary and easily “Nightcrawler’s” strongest card.   

I’m a fan of sticking it to the awful state of journalism and the anarchy of libertarian politics—when it offers something new. “Nightcrawler” is a good film, good enough for me to get frustrated by the missteps that take me out of its carefully constructed world. The cinematography by Robert Elswit (“Inherent Vice”) is gorgeous. The soundtrack recalls Howard Shore in all the best ways. It’s part “Repo Man” (except here Bloom’s sidekick, Rick [Riz Ahmed] is the hapless Otto), part “Taxi Driver” (though unlike Bloom, Travis Bickle had a sense of right and wrong), and part “Wolf of Wall Street,” infused with a double shot of neo-noir nihilism that makes for a memorable pastiche. On paper there’s nothing I don’t love about that. In execution, fair or not, it’s been done better.