Jake Gyllenhaal gave one of his career-best performances last year in Prisoners, playing a lone-wolf police detective who'd mastered the art of using perfunctory cop-speak to keep citizens and superiors at bay. But it was such a low-key turn — especially coming opposite Hugh Jackman and Paul Dano's showier roles — that Gyllenhaal barely drew any attention during awards season. That's not likely to be a problem this year. Gyllenhaal's new film Nightcrawler has the actor giving the kind of electrifying performance that's impossible to ignore. His Louis Bloom is funny and frightening — the kind of character whose name could well become shorthand for "psychopath," like Norman Bates or Travis Bickle.
The Taxi Driver comparison isn't made lightly. Nightcrawler writer-director Dan Gilroy deliberately evokes the edgy American cinema of the 1970s, with Taxi Driver and Network as the most obvious touchstones. Gyllenhaal's Bloom is a dangerously adept cipher who's internalized the messages and patter of self-help books; he's determined to use his too-broad smile and too-eager disposition to coerce people into giving him money — even if they're just paying him to go away. When Bloom stumbles across a bloody car crash, he's fascinated by the independent cameraman who rolls up, shooting footage that he plans to sell to the local TV news. So Bloom buys some equipment of his own and starts recording crime scenes — which is something he proves to be very good at, since he lacks both shame and restraint.
Nightcrawler is meant to be a commentary on the shamelessness of modern broadcast journalism, but it's not an especially convincing one. Rene Russo is typically strong as Nina, a ratings-grubbing TV news producer who's willing to cut deals with Bloom, a man she knows is deranged. But it's not really accurate to say that Nina's "if it bleeds it leads" agenda is emblematic of the 21st century news business, given that there have been Ninas in journalism movies since the 1930s. The only real black mark against Nightcrawler is that Gilroy leans too heavy on message at the expense of plot. Broken down to its essence, Nightcrawler skimps on narrative: Bloom discovers his talent, Nina encourages him, and as the weeks and months go by, Bloon gets more and more brazen about manipulating crime scenes and breaking the law in order to get the perfect shot.
But whatever Nightcrawler lacks in story, it more than makes up in character and mood. Nothing in Gilroy's previous filmography gave any indication that he was capable of a neo-noir as offbeat and flavorful as this one. Gilroy's brother Tony, sure; he wrote and directed the excellent Michael Clayton and Duplicity. And the Gilroys' father Frank wrote the Tony- and Pulitzer-winning play (and drama-class scene-study staple) The Subject Was Roses.
But prior to making his directorial debut with Nightcrawler, Dan Gilroy had been a fairly undistinguished journeyman screenwriter, with credits like Freejack, Chasers, and his brother Tony's The Bourne Legacy. From out of nowhere, Nightcrawler is both entertaining and excitingly bold, consisting mostly of long scenes where Bloom corners some poor sap and delivers unhinged lectures about the secret to success, in the middle of a Los Angeles that Gilroy and P.T. Anderson's longtime cinematographer Robert Elswit depict as a steamy hellscape.
If Gyllenhaal weren't so fiercely committed to getting inside Bloom's skin, Nightcrawler wouldn't work. This isn't the tale of a bad man who learns the error of his ways: Nightcrawler is a finely shaded character sketch of a crackpot, who in classic noir fashion opens the movie with a shocking act of violence, then spends the next two hours living down to his intro. Give Gilroy credit for realizing that it's more fun to watch Bloom ooze his way up the media ladder that it would've been to force some phony redemption or comeuppance on him. And give Gyllenhaal credit for treating Nightcrawler as more than just an acting exercise. Louis Bloom is compelling because Gyllenhaal keeps a spark of wit deep within his sunken eyes. Here is a man who knows what he's doing. That's what's so chilling.
Email arts@nashvillescene.com.
