Well first off I need to say I have been in a total 'bromance' with Jake Gyllenhaal for few years now and biased as I might be, I think this is another movie he nailed just great. I love the subtle way he works to define his characters, how Lou looks gangly and with those big wide opened voracious eyes that are somehow a mirror of what is about to become...Jake has an amazing restraint in acting, especially in this age where tv shows formats brought an often over-dramatized style into storytelling and acting, so his way to sculpt his characters a little at a time manage to build a certain tension underneath that keep you focused on them even in ordinary set-ups and situations..and this approach to acting makes even more intense when those subtle underneath tension gets released like in the mirror scene.
Beside his performance I think Nightcrawler is a very good movie with some really great moments, and a central theme about what we as audience, have been accustomed to consider information and how morbid we grew about the appearance of what happens instead of the reasons or the facts itself.
Directing and photography are stellar, for what seems a well paced and balanced screenplay manage to mix introspection, storytelling and pure action even though there are few unfocused moments. The car chasing scene, considered how has been endlessly abused by movies, is just amazing with a fantastic edit and originality in choosing the point of view af a third spectator instead of the runaway or the chaser, which are the common storytelling perspectives we see in such scenes.
I was slightly disappointed in few aspects about how the plot develops in the last part. I would have liked a more open and thought provoking ending, the final interrogation and the closing scene looked a bit too predictable and not aligned with the overall tone of the story. A bit too 'didactic' in the purpose, probably to accomodate the so called general audience which always needs a proper wrap-up to get what the story is about. If it was up to me I would have ended the movie with the broadcasting of the last reportage for instance.
I gave it a 7, it may have rightfully deserved a 8, but you know the final always influence too much of a movie overall perception. It's somehow unfair even to me, but I can't help it.

I first watched "Nightcrawler" about six months ago and was so blown away that I didn't jot down any thoughts as I normally do. I like to record my opinions on things like movies, books, and music because I am a mostly obsessed record keeper. I kept thinking that watching "Nightcrawler" was so unexpectedly enjoyable that I must not have been paying full attention. I've never been a Jake Gyllenhaal fan at all and I'd never even heard of this Dan Gilroy guy. I kept telling myself that I needed to just watch it again, but my movie watchlist kept calling to me, so I never watched it again...until last night.

Last night's re-watch confirmed my first viewing. Jake Gyllenhaal is mesmerizing as Louis Bloom, the thief who stumbled upon the wonderful world of TV news. Louis is sympathetic and despicable. Is he the pro or antagonist? I still have no idea. He's criminal and hero at once. The things he does are rotten. He's so weird and dysfunctional, yet smart and manipulative. He's seriously one of the neatest characters I've seen in a long time.

Rick (Riz Ahmed) is the guy that you really want to pull for. He's Louis's first employee and pathetically naive. Until the final act, when he actually manages to manipulate Louis. Again, does this film know what it wants me to think or believe?

Nothing is really as it seems here. This is a fun, tense film that will keep you guessing and entertained.

Ambulance-chasing with the latest form of human pond scum, an aggressive crowd of opportunistic late-night freelance photographers who make their living from the graphic misfortune of others. "If you're seeing me, you're having the worst day of your life," brags the new recruit in this bloodthirsty professional sport, a hauntingly detached functional sociopath played by Jake Gyllenhaal.

It's a top-notch performance, Patrick Bateman-esque in its eerie moral bankruptcy. Laser-focused and analytical in all things, he's amoral to the core. He communicates in long, precise sentences that cut straight to the point, strategically disarming his conversational adversaries before they even know they've entered a sparring match. If not for the obvious physical indications, one might question if he's human at all. The one exception might be his fondness for composition, an endless pursuit of sublime photographic harmony amidst the broken glass and shattered bodies of a fatal auto accident. The rescue crews and police officers, also present amidst the carnage, are mere obstacles between his lens and the natural beauty he finds, bleeding and gurgling, upon the asphalt.

As Gyllenhaal grows bolder and more calculated in his nightly hunt for that next great shot, the stakes increase and his eye grows more selective. It all culminates in a masterful climax, a white-knuckle chase scene, that pulled me from my cozy spot on the couch to a closer seat on the floor, a few feet removed from the TV screen. I can't remember the last time I was so invested in a story.

**Survival of the Batsh!t Craziest**

Here we have a sociopath for the digital age. A _Taxi Driver_ for the early 21st Century. Louis Bloom might have been born yesterday, just before taking an online course in Small Business Management, the new way to self-educate, without the petty annoyances of human contact and interaction. Every basic lesson he absorbed is put to the test with the obsessive solitary singular purpose of succeeding. Jake Gyllenhaal immerses himself in the role with psychotic stupor. He speaks with the same forward-plotting conviction whether tossing about obvious clichés or revealing something brilliant. The perfect entrepreneur. A maniacal detached idiot savant on a ruthless predatory mission. Morality and the legal system are minor roadblocks to dodge, riddles to resolve, sentiments to overcome. His brand of narcissistic psychosis is a genetic mutation that insures the survival of the species. Like an Aryan bulldozer, he cripples and kills the weak, exploiting the flaws in humanity, cannibalizing the limits of civilization, and capitalizing on each opportunity every step of the way, all for his own personal gain. All while intuiting which backs to scratch and/or stab and when. The perfect entrepreneur. The quintessential post-9/11 movie hero. Where Travis Bickle sought to take down corruption to rescue the innocent, Louis Bloom does the opposite, preying on the fallen and severing the social codes and mores that bind us for his own solitary success. American Exceptionalism. Nightcrawler is nanoeconomics in its purest, most wicked and vicious form. I'm sure some may see it not so much as a comment on what ails us but as an inspiration to venture out from, and Bloom as a persistent determined role model to imitate. How-to-Succeed-in Business-Without-Feeling. Humanity is merely a construct that can be subjugated, an apparatus to dismantle, a child's toy for the child that wants it all.

'Nightcrawler' is a neo noir thriller starring a very impressive (and thin) Jake Gyllenhaal which cleverly satirises the media industry's obsession with horror and violence.

The poster's correlation with Nicolas Winding Refn's 'Drive' is a very clear choice because they are very similar in how they're made in terms of themes and even soundtrack. The film is also very similar to Martin Scorsese's 'Taxi Driver' and David Fincher's 'Seven' as the cinematography is very bleak and dark.

The story is disturbingly gripping as the audience view Lou Bloom's rise as an amateur journalist who seems to do anything to get the best footage of horrific crime scenes. What's more shocking are the news channels that purchase his work claiming "if it bleeds, it leads!".

Jake Gyllenhaal is brilliant in the starring role as he seems creepy but also powerful and shrewd.

★★★★