November 15th in Chicago. Dan Gilroy makes his directorial debut in this Fincher-esque thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo (director's wife), Bill Paxton and Riz Ahmed. Gyllenhaal is Lous Bloom, a bit of sleazoid and budding sociopath. Louis is robbing a construction site when he beats up (or kills maybe?) a security guard and takes his watch. While trying to sell his haul to a contractor he asks about a job and he's turned down because he's a thief. Louis stumbles upon a car accident and meets Joe Loder (Paxton), a freelance cameraman filming the accident. Louis has found his calling.
Louis steals a bike and trades it for a camcorder and a police scanner to go looking for trouble. Louis films the aftermath of a carjacking and sells the footage to Nina (Russo) at Channel 6. Amped up by Nina's advice, Louis hustles and gets some good stuff. He even hires an intern, Rick (Ahmed) to help him out. Nina likes his work and he gets better payoffs. He soon upgrades his camera equipment, scanner and gets a fast car. Louis' hustle and drive (he goes so far as to start staging accident scenes to make things more gory, "if it bleeds it leads.") are what separates him from the likes of Loder. Loder, who has given the ungrateful Louis a lot of tips, tries to hire Louis but Louis turns him down. Loder then scoops Louis and reminds him that it could've been him. Louis decides to tip the scales in his favor by sabotaging Loder's van so it gets in an accident. When the call comes over the scanner about the accident, Louis is there to film the badly injured Loder being extracted from his mangled vehicle.
Since the only female Louis has anything resembling a relationship with, decides to pressure her into sleeping with him by threatening to take his footage elsewhere. Louis' big moment is when he and Rick beat the police to a home invasion in an affluent LA suburb. Louis films the culprits leaving the house then goes inside to film the carnage. The triple homicide leads to police detectives requesting the edited tape from Nina and eventually Louis finds himself being questioned as well. It turns out that the incident was a result of a bad drug deal but Nina opts not to use the info and keep with the "terror in the suburbs" angle. Louis uses the footage of the killers, footage that he conveniently edited out of the footage he gave to Nina and neglected to tell the police about. His plan is for him and Rick to follow the killers into situation where an arrest will be worth filming. He follows the killers to a restaurant and dials 911. The cops show up, a shoot occurs and then a high speed chase that ends in brutal accident. Louis lures Rick by telling him its safe to film the dead shooter. The shooter still has some life left and he guns down Rick while the camera is rolling. The film ends with Louis giving a motivational speech to his new interns and his 2 new vans.
Gilroy, who has more writing credits than directing credits, does a real nice job of showing the dark, gritty and often morally ambiguous side of "nightcrawling," the freelance journalism of chasing down crime, accidents and fires. It's sh*tty work but someone's got to do it apparently. Excellent performances all around. Gyllenhaal is excellent is the sociopathic Louis who apparently memorized a self-help book. Once he gets going, nothing will stand in his way. I still think he killed the security guard he tussles with in the beginning of the film. Louis is a creepy guy that one should back away from when he enters the room and starts talking. Russo is great as the washed up reporter turned editor who's kind of down on her luck until she meets Louis. The footage that Louis provides give Nina's career a boost and she does some things that are morally reprehensible and I think she knows it. But she's all about her career, after all as Louis put it, she "works the vampire shift" at the worst rated news station in the city. What choice does she have.
This is a very, very good film that is worth watching. This is one of the better films I've seen this year. Check it out.
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