NIGHTCRAWLER

NIGHTCRAWLER

JAKE GYLLENHAAL

Director/writer Dan Gilroy

Producers Tony Gilroy. Jake Gyllenhaal

Review by Allison O’Donoghue

I’m often perplexed and appalled when morning television throws up dose of blood and gore while I chow down on my breakfast. I don’t want to see or start my day with grim images, but I watch the drama unfold with a feeling of disgust and shock, unable to look away, just in case I miss something. And that’s the very premise KWLA News Director, Nina Romina (Rene Russo) is counting on, our inability to look away. News is in Nina’s blood. She pounded the pavement as a journalist for years slowly working her way up the top of a low rating, small time LA TV station and she knows she is only as good as her last piece. In fact, fear of failure, redundancy or sacking fuels her insatiable need to feed the beast. Enter Louis ‘Lou” Bloom an unemployed 30 something that will do anything to get a job, but in the meantime he resorts to stealing scrap metal to sell off to survive another day in LA.

When we first meet Lou he’s busy illegally cutting wire when a private security guard interrupts him. He is cringe worthy polite and for a couple of minutes you think he might be able to talk his way out of a ticket or an arrest, but when his charm looks like its not going to work he suddenly attacks the security guard and flees the scene with his goods. He takes his haul to a scrap yard and negotiates a sale price, and is desperate enough to apply for a position, even offering himself as an intern, but the boss declines his offer - he doesn’t employ thieves. On his way home he comes across a crash scene and gets out to investigate, but it’s not the bloody scene that interests him, it’s the camera crews filming the scene that grabs his attention. He bails up freelance cameraman Joe Loder (Bill Paxton) to ask him how it works, Joe dismisses him as a gore fest tourist but tells him “if it bleeds, it leads” which inspires Lou to steal a bike to buy a camera and police scanner.

He sets out that night to find drama to film and comes across the aftermath of a carjacking, he doesn’t know the rules and moves in too close for comfort. He films the bloody death of the victim but because of his close proximity he’s kicked out of the scene, along with other camera crews who know the rules and have kept a respectful distance. Naturally, the other stringers are pissed with Lou for sabotaging their shot and they become rivals. Lou takes his footage to KWLA where he meets Nina who buys his footage and broadcasts it that day. Thrilled with his first try success, he sets out to find more stories to film, and unexpectedly finds that he’s good at it, has a good eye and is fearless in getting up close and personal. He employs an assistant Rick (Riz Ahmed) who he offers an internship, but Rick is so poor he can’t accept unless he’s paid, so Lou offers him a meagre $30 a night, and Lou and Rick are on their way to developing budding freelance careers as stringers.

Nightcrawler’s are not new, they’ve been around for decades, and photographer Weegee was the first to freelance and became infamous during the 1930/40’s in New York. I saw an exhibition of Weegee’s work in Milan in 2008, and it was amazing just how close he got to the bloodthirsty scene. It was rumoured that he would rearrange the bodies putting them in strategic positions to get a better shot and displayed a macabre sense of humour by placing bodies underneath signs that read “closed for business” or “no refunds”. His black and white shots were fascinating, as he caught the last breath or gory scene in all its unsavoury graphic glory. Weegee often got to the scene before the police did, and had a developer in the boot of his car so he could process the film and get it to the press first thing. Lou also moves bodies to get better footage, and boldly enters crime scenes, unseen and uninvited. Basically he does whatever he can to beat the other stringers to the punch.

Weegee. (Arthur Fellig) 1899-1968. 

At first I found Lou very irritating. He’s articulate and polite, and appears really straight, ingratiates himself, flatters everyone he meets, he's trying so hard its cringe worthy to watch. He hasn’t had a formal education but has learnt everything he needs to know online, doing endless online courses that lead him nowhere. Online education is another scam that needs to be investigated. RTOs exploit people’s need to up skill with worthless certificates to gain employment but often the course(s) are seen as substandard, not worth the paper its printed on. Anyway, as the film unfolds it becomes clear that Lou is a charming psychopath. He is so emotionally detached its scary. He lives alone, appears to have no friends or family to speak of, with Rick being is his only real connection, who he exploits and Rick knows it, but is so desperate for money he has no choice but to accept whatever he’s given.

Lou's success gives him enough money to buy a Dodge Challenger so he can get to the disaster scenes faster. Rick navigates, picks the quickest routes, learns the police codes and watches the car while Lou films. Eventually Rick is given a camera to get extra footage and becomes more and more immersed in the murky world of LA nightlife.   

Jake Gyllenhaal gives a fantastic performance, its no surprise he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. He’s renown for playing off kilter, quirky characters ever since Donny Darko days, but in the Nightcrawler he’s just plain creepy. He lost 9 kilos to play the part, which seems odd at first. Why lose weight for the role? But then you realise this guy isn’t interested in food, he’s so consumed with what he’s doing he barely eats. Gyllenhaal is so thin his crazy eyes bulge and bones protrude. Its not a good look for him, but works wonders for the character.

As the film progresses Lou becomes more cunning. He knows he’s supplying Nina with the best footage money can buy. So good, that he’s alienated all the other stringers and unnerves Rick with his illegal unethical news gathering methods. When Nina wont pay him what he wants he threatens to take his footage to the competition, blackmails Nina into paying him more and pressures her into a sexual relationship, which thankfully we don’t see. Frankly, it’s so sad that Nina feels she has no choice but to surrender to his demands to save her job. She too lives alone, has no children and is married to the job, so they are similar. Nina is as unethical as Lou, and he knows it and exploits her for all she’s worth. She sells her soul for the next slice of horror for the morning news.

Dan Gilroy is a screenwriter and Nightcrawler is his directorial debut. He’s done a damn fine job in depicting LA in such a way that I’ve never seen before. LA has been filmed so often that I think we know the place, but I’ve never been there so I can only go on what I’ve seen in movies and doco’s. Gilroy has managed to show a different side of LA. Sure he shoots iconic places like Venice beach etc but he also shows us how glossy, glamorous and the seedy underbelly of LA at night. It’s lovely to see Rene Russo back up on the screen and she gives a great performance. Nightcrawler is a bit of a family affair, Rene is married to director Dan Gilroy who’s brother Tony Gilroy also produced as well as Gyllenhaal, who relished his role as producer. Nightcrawler has won swags of awards, which is wonderful for an Independent film.

Eventually Lou’s dirty deeds catch up with him as detectives become suspicious of his methods and suspect he’s withholding vital footage of a crime scene. He manages to talk his way out of a sticky situation, but he doesn’t completely fool the detectives, however they can’t hold him until they have proof of his misdeeds. Rick also questions his behaviour and challenges him to a pay rise by threatening to go to the police. Big mistake. Never challenge or corner a psychopath, that’s their forte’. The only person who doesn’t question his methods is Nina. She doesn’t care how he gets it, so long as he does. And now I'm wondering if he killed the security guard at the beginning of the film? Probably.

I support independent film, its far more interesting than big blockbusters, which is often mindless entertainment, and I enjoy them too especially if I don’t want to think. Nightcrawler is a think piece. We’re all complicit in our insatiable need for information. Now everyone is a photographer or filmmaker, pulling out mobile phones taking shots and filming events as they unfold, and as a consequence doing the stringers out of work. People upload footage on YouTube or facebook which broadcasters use, often without paying for it. It would be wiser if they withheld the footage and held out for payment, but it’s all about getting famous any way you can and being first to post and brag. Sometimes it’s a good thing. Filming police killing unarmed black men around America has exposed a racist culture that would ordinarily be justified, covered up or hidden. Governments and officials are scrambling to put a stop to public journalism but it’s impossible. The floodgates are open. One would hope that with all this public reporting, people should/could be held accountable for their actions. But not always.   

Nightcrawler raises a whole heap of ethical and moral issues about private citizens right to privacy vs. our right to know. I remember early on in my career I was having a conversation about my journalistic integrity to a businessman who derided me, because I was withholding personal information about a public couple, which I didn’t think was my right to expose. He said, “Who gives a shit about your integrity? What are you going to do, write on your tombstone that you died with your integrity intact? No one gives a shit honey. Its all about getting ahead and doing what ever you can to get there even if it means stepping over people or exposing peoples dirty secrets to get there. Just do it.” And this was before social media even existed. Unfortunately, he was right. No one gives a toss. 

Interestingly, Nightcrawler highlights the enormous difficulty of finding reasonable employment and the endless exploitation of internships. So desperate are people that they’ll take an internship praying it will lead to full time employment, but often it goes on for years without any hope of getting a job. It’s a scam and should be investigated. It also raises questions about consequences and accountability. Do we all sell our souls like Lou and Nina to get ahead and survive? In the end Lou is so successful he hires interns to expand his business, and even though he's been dirt poor himself, he doesn't give a toss, he's happy to exploit anyone to get ahead.

Nightcrawler is modern film noir. It’s got everything. It’s a thriller, a roller coaster ride, an unabated indictment of digital culture that knows no bounds. We are all winners and losers in the digital age. We’ve had our privacy eroded bit by bit while others expose too much information about themselves online leaving themselves wide open to exploitation, fraud and theft as well as public humiliation. I suppose we are all still working out online boundaries - what’s public and what’s private – what’s too much, what’s not enough? Time will tell.

 Nightcrawler is a great flick well worth seeing.

Weegee even had a stamp to protect his copyright.