The best crime movies evoke the dangerous, forbidden thrill of being a fly on the wall in the midst of mayhem. They seduce our morbid curiosity, lure us into the dark, and then scowl at us for being there — in the same way the abyss you stare into stares back at you.
“Nightcrawler” is one of those crime thrillers. Like a West Coast version of Martin Scorsese’s early forays into the mean streets of New York (i.e., “Mean Streets,” “Taxi Driver” or “The King of Comedy”), this directorial debut from longtime screenwriter Dan Gilroy ("The Fall" and "The Bourne Legacy") plunges headlong into morally murky territory, bravely following a troubled night owl through a dangerous city.
If it bleeds, it leads. This is the principle that propels freelance videographer Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) to chase the sound of sirens and gunshots across the streets of Los Angeles. Just as Lou does to his poor partner, Rick (Riz Ahmed), “Nightcrawler” keeps viewers on edge, squirming in anticipation of whatever nightmarish situation is coming up around the corner.
Lou’s emotional distance at horrific crime scenes is quite disturbing to behold. One particularly chilling scene finds him running giddily up the blood-stained stairs of a shot-up mansion. Behind his camera, he is the wide-eyed embodiment of sensationalism.
What’s even more cringe-inducing than his desensitized demeanor amid violence is his behavior toward the buyer of his grisly footage, late-night news director Nina Romina (Rene Russo, commanding a strong screen presence). As is the case with Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle around Cybill Shepherd’s character in “Taxi Driver,” Lou’s id breaks through his boyish innocence around Nina, and he makes the same predatory advances on her that the city does on its citizens.
Like “Taxi Driver,” “Nightcrawler” is a film about a scarred soul swallowed up by a squalid city. Like De Niro’s Travis, Lou soaks up the dark side of Los Angeles without noticing his innocence deteriorate, eventually shivering with joy at what makes most shudder in fear. The scariest parts of the film are the ones in which you find yourself shivering with excitement along with Lou, even as he breaks ethics to get good footage of unfortunate events.
Our gravitation toward this deeply disturbing individual is a credit to Gyllenhaal’s scary magnetism. With his ever-glistening wide eyes and perky voice, Lou tricks us into thinking he is an innocent, almost childlike soul. And even as his actions suggest otherwise, he leaves us wondering whether he truly understands what he is doing is wrong. His character is an enigma you can never quite diagnose, one that will linger in your mind long after the lights go up in the theater.
It's a credit to Gilroy's writing that the film is never a simple tale of an eager young man seduced and corrupted by sensationalist media. It doesn't make him a monster; it brings out the monster already there. In contrast to Lou, we see other "nightcrawlers" (like a veteran videographer charmingly played by Bill Paxton) who are able to maintain morals behind the camera.
What we see through Lou’s lens and scarred psyche is darkly dazzling, making us question our own morals. But Gilroy never lets us lose our innocence in the darkness. It’s no small feat to seduce viewers with sensationalism and ultimately leave them scared by it, rather than intoxicated.
Perhaps the film has that effect because Gilroy, with the help of master cinematographer Robert Elswit, always puts the camera in the right place and viewers in the right perspective. The most striking shot is that of a black screen in which Lou eventually emerges, looming under what turns out to be the night sky, looking forward — like the abyss staring back at us.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1uP_8VJkDQ&w=500&h=315]