Nightcrawler (2014)

Movies
1

Just watched this tonight and I can’t find a thread for this movie in the forum. Damn, I really enjoyed this. Some of the stuff that Jake Gyllenhaal is doing during this movie is pretty powerful I think, at least it felt that way for me. The way that he talks, the tone and rhythm of his voice and how every sentence he utters is crafted for the consumption of his listener. I really felt that his character uses a lot of words, but not one word is wasted (at least in his mind), each word is calculated to try and get him what he wants.

I also found it really powerful when the veneer slips away and maybe the real Louis Bloom peeks out like in the following quote:

If you are reading my post then I’ve spoiled the movie, but you really should see the movie before reading the quote.

What if my problem wasn’t that I don’t understand people but that I don’t like them? What if I was the kind of person who was obliged to hurt you for this? I mean physically. I think you’d have to believe afterward, if you could, that agreeing to participate and then backing out at the critical moment was a mistake. Because that’s what I’m telling you, as clearly as I can.

And the look on his face when Rick (Riz Ahmed) reopens the bargaining, that’s something that I will be watching closely when I can see this movie a second time.

Rene Russo does a very good job as Nina and there is certainly a change in her character from when you first see her to her last scene in the movie. I’m not sure if she had to be pulled in that direction of if a gentle nudge was all that it took.

And finally, if redemption is your thing, you will want to look elsewhere.

2

I’m with you. Gyllenhaal has talked about basing this character off a coyote, and once I heard it I thought he’d achieved that exactly. He’s already got deep set eyes, but thirty pounds lighter those things are coming right out his skull. Riz Ahmed was great too, and I particularly liked all those establishing shots of LA at night.

3

Wow, this is a really class movie. Gyllenhall, Russo and Ahmed are excellent, the script, dialogue and direction are top notch and the cinematography, particularly of nighttime LA, is beautiful. To say anything about the plot would be to spoil a movie that really has to be seen without any preconceptions, but it’s highly, highly recommended if you’re up for an edgy and unsettling couple of hours.

The polar opposite of a popcorn movie - it’s extremely anxious-making.

4

He nails the sociopath role imho. Great performance from Gyllenhaal.

5

The latest Bullseye podcast is an interview with Dan Gilroy and Rene Russo. Really good.

6

Just saw this yesterday. I thought some of the stuff that the podcast crew weren’t sure was satire or not was a bit too on the nose and pulled me out of the drama, but Gyllenhaal’s performance more than redeemed the movie. Bloom is one of the creepiest characters I can remember in all of cinema, and the slightly inhuman delivery of those online business school lines was just amazing. I’ve always wondered what sort of person could say that shit with a straight face and, well, now I know. There’s so much show-don’t-tell in this movie - you feel like you know all about Bloom even though his psychology is so utterly alien.

7

This is up on Netflix now, and i just watched it for the first time.
This movie is amazing. Gyllenhaal’s performance was totally crazy. Some of the scenes build tension in a way I’ve rarely seen in a movie.

Definitely check it out of you haven’t seen it before.

8

It is pretty amazing, that’s for sure. The main character is simultaneously loathsome and fascinating.

9

I’m just now watching this on Netflix. This is seriously a great performance by Gyllenhaal. As creepy as I find his character, I can’t help but like him. I think the music is also notable. As Timex mentioned, there are some scenes that that build the tension well, and I think the music is no small part of that.

10

Thank you. I was really struggling with how to describe his character. The loathsome part is easy, as he’s pretty much a sociopath… But the other part was what was so hard to put my finger on.

I almost wanted to say likable or something, but it’s not quite that.

Your description of “fascinating” i think sums it up perfectly. That’s exactly what it is. You see how totally into his job he is, and its kind of admirable, but really it’s exactly as you put it… It’s fascinating. You can’t help but watch the way gyllenhal presents himself, with the way he’s framing shots, or interacting with others in an almost robotically professional way, and you can’t look away.

11

Thanks for posting about Netflix, Timex. What a great movie. Kind of a mix of King of Comedy and Network but more brutal and creepy. Gyllenhal barely looked like himself, with that skeleton frame and the greasy hair. Just an insanely driven obsessive compulsive out there trying to make a buck.

The final caper was just gonzo nuts. Bloom had icewater in his veins.

The last scene with Rene Russo was awesome. There was some serious electricity there.

I can’t believe that this came out in October 2014 and was nowhere at the Oscars (at least it was nominated for original screenplay).

That was some serious 1970’s quality filmmaking.

12

We watched it last night and it knocked me out. As others have posted, Gyllenhall, loathsome as his character is, forces you to keep your eyes on him. There was one little moment towards the end that I really liked where we see that he’s still wearing the watch from the opening scene - nothing has really changed.

A number of people have mentioned King of Comedy, but for the first two thirds I was thinking more Taxi Driver. Then again, if you’re going to borrow, might as well borrow from the best.

13

I really don’t like Gyllenhall. He is superb in this film.

14

We watched this last night & it has to rank right up at the top with riveting movies - the tension is built by wondering what the heck is he going to do next, rather than waiting for something to happen that you know will happen.

Because his character, holy crap, what an awesome performance / character development. I’m not sure that Loathsome captures my feeling on what he is. While he does some loathsome things, he’s not doing it because he’s loathsome, he’s doing it because he’s provocatively driven. He’s provocative as his suggestions and words make sense, but have a slippery edge to them when you stand back & look at the whole picture - his motivation, his obsessiveness and his complete ignorance for how others perceive him.

One of the other TV helpers - you can see in his eyes his complete repulsion for the scenes that Bloom delivers - his eyes dart from the screen to Bloom, and he just shakes his head because he can’t believe Russo’s character Nina loves this work.

For me, the singular long narrative rant that Bloom delivers epitomizes his character - 90% of it seems completely normal & sounds reasonable, but then there is THAT sentence that makes you wonder because it’s the only time it more or less confirms the proposal he delivered earlier in the movie while at the Mexican restaurant:

What a great scene!

Now I like you, Nina. And I look forward to our time together. But you have to understand, fifteen thousand isn’t all that I want. From here on, starting now, I want my work to be credited by the anchors and on a burn. The name of my company is Video Production News, a professional news-gathering service. That’s how it should be read and that’s how it should be said. I also want to go to the next rung and meet your team, and the station manager, and the director, and the anchors, and start developing my own personal relationships. I’d like to start meeting them this morning. You’ll take me around, you’ll introduce me as the owner and president of Video Production News, and remind them of some of my many other stories. I’m not done. I also want to stop our discussion over prices. This will save time. So when I say that a particular number is my lowest price, that’s my lowest price and you can be assured that I arrived at whatever that number is very carefully. Now, when I say that I want these things, I mean that I want them and I don’t want to have to ask again. And the last thing that I want, Nina, is for you to do the things that I ask you to do when we’re alone together in your apartment, NOT LIKE THE LAST TIME. So, I’ll tell you what. I have the van crash on Moorpark tonight. It was a couple of stringers actually. That could lead by itself on an average night. I’d be willing to throw that in for free. So what do you say, do we have a deal?

Once the movie finished, I really want the see the previous chapter in the story - he’s in an apartment, with a TV, computer, etc, so he must have had some sort of income before, right? Or was he scraping by all this time? I want to believe that he had a previous job of some sort, but how he lost it would be another movie I’d like to watch.

15

Once the movie finished, I really want the see the previous chapter in the story - he’s in an apartment, with a TV, computer, etc, so he must have had some sort of income before, right? Or was he scraping by all this time? I want to believe that he had a previous job of some sort, but how he lost it would be another movie I’d like to watch.

He was basically just hustling.

When the movie opens up, he’s stealing metal from some warehouse or something, which he then sells to a scrap facility. Then, when he needs a camera to start out, he steals a bike and sells it to a pawnshop.

I think that’s basically how he was getting by previously. Basically through petty crime.

16

I know how the movie starts, but I’d like to think there was a more dramatic reason for him scrapping ;-)

17

Given his ego, I don’t think it was possible for him to hold a conventional job for very long. He probably just bounced around until he hit on the news footage gig.

18

I just saw this on Netflix. What a masterfully done movie. I like that it sets the tone right away in the credits sequence. Before we even see Gyllenhall or anything about the movie, there’s just scenes of night time L.A., filmed in a realistic way, so that it feels grounded in reality, rather than feeling like a film. I had no idea what the movie was about, but just that credit sequence gave me a lot about what to expect, and I was riveted from then on.

Gyllenhall’s dialog and delivery are just so good. He talks like someone who is used to posting and articulating himself on a message board.

19

I quite enjoyed this one, but I’m not as sold on Gyllenhall’s dialogue as some. He did a great job with the role, and I don’t have a beef with the acting at all, but to me the robotic and slightly psychopathic delivery was a contrivance to push more story and progression out of a short medium. ie, the screenplay wants us to understand every aspect of of daily news, shock reporting, and night-time reporting, and trying to ram that much career progression and relationship building with average human dialogue and realistic scenarios was impossible. So they just bullet-pointed every topic and had him say it verbatim. I mean, he literally just says the plot points he needs to follow to be the best at what he does, including blackmail for sex, tactics for bagaining, etc. Because the delivery was so mesmerizing made it a pleasure, but it doesn’t make it a good screenplay. By the end I was wishing it had been an HBO series so that we could have spread the calories out more, a la The Wire.

Mad Max has a similar moment where the characters outright say what is driving them, hope and/or retribution. That was lazy, but in a comic-book movie where plot events come before character progression it might have been necessary (I did love the movie btw).

Come to think of it, NightCrawler was the opposite of Drive, where Goslings’ annoying mute-like silence and meaningful stares (unrealistically) filled in the gaps of relationship building quicker than playing out normal-person dialogue, that would have needed so much more time to build something substantial than the movie wanted to afford.

20

I quite like this comparison. I don’t agree with your takeaway, but I love the contrast that you propose. Just a glance at both movie titles explains the character differences, and I love the fact of that. The title Drive is an imperative. Which explains the taciturn nature of the character. [I’m not quite sure what to do with the phrase ‘mute-like silence’ and I certainly don’t find it annoying, in the slightest.] He acts. He moves forward. I imagine his mind as an engine, so your contrast with how little he speaks makes so much sense. The last thing The Driver would ever want would be for something he was involved with to wind up on TV.

Louis Bloom, on the other hand, has to talk. He has to buy his way into the world with words. He acts as well, but he uses language as The Driver uses his physical skill. Which makes it possible for him to slither his way into a career, such as it is, in the media. He has to have language to do that, because he is a con artist at heart, with ambition and hunger for attention.

I love that you brought this comparison to light. Thank you spiffy!

-xtien

“There’s no good sharks?”