Movie Review Monday: Nightcrawler
Welcome to another edition of Movie Review Monday!
This week's film is the 2014 crime thriller, Nightcrawler, starring Jake Gyllenhaal.
The story follows Louis Bloom (Gyllenhaal), who searches for crime scenes around Los Angeles to film and sell to local news channels. The more violent and sensational, the better. From the first scenes of the movie where we meet Bloom, we immediately see him as an amoral, anti-social character who is intense and is willing to do whatever he needs to to get what he wants.
After some initial stumbles, Bloom eventually becomes very good at getting the shots he needs, going to whatever lengths he has to. The stakes increasingly get higher, and the movie does really well building the tension. Bloom is a strange character, but you can't help but be fixated by his wild exploits and behavior. Gyllenhaal carries the movie wonderfully, with only a few brief supporting roles. Rene Russo is the main supporting character we see, with her playing Bloom's local news station contact, Nina.
The film reminded me a lot of the Ryan Gosling movie, Drive, which is appropriate since Nightcrawler was produced by the same people who made Drive. Both are great, dark, character driven thrillers that you can't help but watch.
I definitely recommend checking out Nightcrawler (even if it isn't about the X-Men character of the same name). You can stream it right now on Netflix!