Past the oil pumps and billboards, up through the hills and out in the suburbs, you’ll find Lou Bloom, camera in hand, filming LA’s dying for profit. Lou is a modern-day success story. A TV newsman racing through the night to get the gore first. Come the morning his footage is on breakfast news. Pixelated, occasionally, for decency’s sake.
Nightcrawler, screenwriter Dan Gilroy’s first film as director, is a scouring satire of the media and the state of the job market. Lou is played with terrifying precision by Jake Gyllenhaal. He’s a product of desperate times: a wild animal with an appetite. And his next meal – a car crash, a stabbing, a shooting – is never far away. There’s no morality in Lou’s world, just what’s to gain and what he needs to do to get it.
Lou isn’t looking for handouts, which is good, because there aren’t any. Gilroy shows us a world where opportunity is scarce and guru culture is on the rise. Lou recites swaths of self-help truisms to potential employers. He calls himself head of “Video News Productions”, hires a deputy (Riz Ahmed) and sets up a two-man corporate structure. Here’s Lou: a mogul in the making, CEO of a car and a crappy video camera. The film’s UK marketing team took the next logical step. They set “Lou Bloom” up with a real-world LinkedIn and Twitter account (since left untended and then deleted – very un-Lou that).
The film recalls the best of the 70s satires in that its political engagement never gets in the way of the ride. It’s disturbing, but funny. Provocative, but cool. A scene between Lou’s station head, Nina (Rene Russo), and the studio’s legal counsel sets the film’s case. “Can we show this?,” asks Nina, staring at footage of a triple murder crime scene that Lou broke into. “Legally?”, asks the suit. “No … morally”, she drawls.
Out in LA Nightcrawler makes news. Gyllenhaal is being tipped for the best actor Oscar, Gilroy should snare an original screenplay nomination at least. The performances are fantastic, the film’s politics spot-on, but weeks after Nightcrawler’s over, it’s still Lou’s sickly charm that sticks in my head. Nightcrawler was the most purely enjoyable film of 2014. I can’t help but feel guilty writing that.
Lou spins the wheel, stamps on the accelerator. There’s blood in the road and money to be made from it. It’s a shameful business. Go Lou, go!
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