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'Nightcrawler' worms its way into your psyche

Jake Gyllenhaal is a memorable creep in "Nightcrawler," a highly effective horror movie about a man who sells crime-scene footage to TV news shows.

Jake Gyllenhaal as Lou Bloom in NIGHTCRAWLER, written and directed by Dan Gilroy, opening October 31, 2014.
Jake Gyllenhaal as Lou Bloom in NIGHTCRAWLER, written and directed by Dan Gilroy, opening October 31, 2014.Read moreChuck Zlotnick

NIGHTCRAWLER" is a horror movie for anyone who's survived layoffs and pay cuts and been told to "work smarter."

Which at this point in America includes just about everybody.

The movie's title character is a goblin of management-trainee gobbledygook named Lou Bloom (gaunt Jake Gyllenhaal), a sociopath who at the movie's outset is roaming the midnight byways of Los Angeles looking for what he will later term a "skill" that will put him "on a track toward growth."

He finds it: Bloom stumbles upon a car accident, watches EMTs arrive to help victims, then sees freelance photographers show up to film the carnage.

There are two modes of human conduct on view here - the paramedics who save lives (for a flat fee), and the photographers - so-called "nightcrawlers," who sell the footage to the highest bidder.

We see the light go on in Lou's "Shark Tank" moderator eyes: this could be a startup.

And is it ever. He starts with one pawnshop camcorder and soon builds to a cherry-red sports car, updated police scanner, sat nav and an intern. The movie's sardonic joke? Lou, with his amoral focus on naught but the bottom line, is well-suited to the times.

To him, everything is negotiable and everything is a commodity, including (and maybe especially) human suffering.

His relationships are defined by leverage: He likes the night-shift manager (Rene Russo, terrific) of a local TV station; she needs his footage. So Lou suggests, in one of the movie's many effectively creepy scenes, that a physical relationship become part of the transaction.

Writer-director Dan Gilroy's best invention: Lou's overwhelmed intern Rick (Riz Ahmed), riding shotgun as Lou's business becomes increasingly risky (high-speed traffic weaving), his actions increasingly shocking.

Rick's story arc is key: First he works for free, then he works up the nerve to ask for $30 a night, then . . . well, you renegotiate with Lou Bloom at your own peril.

Why pay anyone when there are so many people in America's New Normal willing to work for free?

We know little of Lou, save that he's learned what he knows on the Internet. He certainly grasps the fundamentals of the net-based "sharing" economy.

Verily, Lou is a "disrupter" of the nightcrawler industry. He starts to surpass his established competition (Bill Paxton), who offers Lou a partnership, which works out about as well as the partnership the Winklevoss twins offered Mark Zuckerberg.

Lou's inhuman drive and inhumane conduct increase as he thrives. He starts showing up at home invasion scenes before the competition and before the police, leading to some hair-raising scenes of Bloom, camera rolling, walking among still-breathing victims. (The movie is arrestingly photographed, and thick with atmosphere.)

In this way, "Nightcrawler" also satirizes the shabbier precincts of local TV news, which sells fear in order to sell soda.

You have to wonder of Lou Bloom hasn't been promoted to network and placed in charge of the Ebola coverage.

There is always, as Lou would say, an "opportunity to expand to the next level."