New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Nightcrawler

One of my favorite films of the festival was the Jake Gyllenhaal story about a creepy dude who goes around following police officers to make amateur videos he sells to the cops. It’s also one of the most likely to get significant awards attention, at the very least for the leading actor.

Continuing on with the theme of TIFF - movies that you have seen many times before in different packages - this movie is an updated version of Paddy Chayefsky’s Network, a scathing critique of media with a focus on television. But, unlike some of the others, Nightcrawler is a welcome update, with a twist in Gyllenhaal’s character, over the Oscar winning role. Here, the target of this film’s satire is local news over huge network conglomerates, and our collective cultural infatuation with bloody news coverage, and there is a creepy central character that is more of a criminal to Howard Beale’s nut job.

But at the center of action is Jake Gyllenhaal’s lead role. To portray the obsessive filmmaker, Jake had to lose over 30 pounds and allow himself to look ghastly and frightening throughout the film. Add Gyllenhaal’s strong delivery of mostly insane and even ridiculous statements about his career aspirations and the things he’s willing to do to achieve, and what you have is a memorable and at times haunting picture with lots to say about the state of the news today. Gyllenhaal nails the personality of the antisocial loner to a tee, and is solidly in the conversation for one of the five Best Actor slots (although the field is a bit crowded at the moment).

Gyllenhaal is supported by a strong Rene Russo, who plays the sleazy TV executive with a dying career, looking for smut to up her ratings. Her behind-the-scenes manipulation of the news anchors into frightening people with the coverage of news stories that Gyllenhaal’s character breaks seems spot on.

And, of course, there is the Chayefsky-ian not-so-subtle point: by becoming obsessed with ratings and not with simply telling the news, the networks in one way or another either become the news (as in Network) or manipulate and create the news (as in Nightcrawler). Nightcrawler is, in essence, a much simpler yet darker version of the 1976 classic. The character development is not as profound, but the action is much faster paced and occurs mostly at night. It is also much gorier.

I doubt this movie has a chance at landing a Best Picture nod (it could in a weak field), but it’s worth watching for Gyllenhaal’s performance alone. Nightcrawler opens in the United States on October 31st.

Continued:       1       2       3       4