Nightcrawler

Discussion in 'New Movies' started by Shale, Oct 31, 2014.

  1. Shale

    Shale ~

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    Nightcrawler
    Movie Blurb by Shale
    October 31, 2014

    I went to see this movie because I love Jake Gyllenhaal but it turns out he is not the cute guy I have known onscreen but pretty much from the first scene he's a wiry, intense asswipe of a character. He got into this character by losing 30 pounds, which gives him this hungry, predatory appearance. While I was thrown off at first by the character I came around to enjoying the movie. BTW, it was liked by 94% of the aggregate critics on Rottentomatoes and 91% of audiences.

    As I mentioned, Louis Bloom (Gyllenhaal) is a small time thief who steals metal to sell to scrap dealers. You know the kind of person responsible for all the aluminum guardrails on bridges in our cities disappearing. Not only that kind of theft but a little strong armed robbery let's us know the kind of person Lou is.

    One night he comes across a car wreck where cops are pulling a woman out of a burning car. On the scene is a guy with a vid cam (Bill Paxton) getting coverage. Lou finds out he is a freelance operation that sells footage to the local TV stations so he gets a cam and a police scanner and starts his new career as a Nightcrawler. But Lou is not the normal vulture, he's a sociopath who does not let rules, police tape or common decency get in his way.

    Lou The Nightcrawler
    [​IMG]

    Because he manages to get his cam up close and personal with some of this gory aftermath of human tragedy, he starts earning money from a local station's News Director Nina (Rene Russo) whose job is on the line due to low ratings. Lou's stuff feeds her but of course he wants to rise in the TV news business.

    Lou in TV Studio
    [​IMG]

    He starts making moves on the older woman, who resists him at first but she reluctantly goes to dinner with him where he is insistent about seducing her and runs down how she needs his product to stay in the business and threatens to take it elsewhere. I did mention that he was a sociopath, right?

    Lou hits on Nina
    [​IMG]

    As Lou's business picks up and he earns a bit of money he gets a new red muscle car and an assistant, Rick (Riz Ahmed) whom he pays a paltry amount in cash and often berates.

    Rick & Lou in Car
    [​IMG]

    I will leave you to see how the movie plays out, but I was assuring myself that any bad thing that would happen to Lou would not bother me since he was such a despicable person. But, the whole point of the movie was how ppl like Lou fit into society as normal, cajoling, lying, getting their way by any means. (Damn, just described a large chunk of the U.S. Congress). The point is, sociopaths walk among us, manipulating us, making us do things outside our own moral compass because they convince us it is OK.

    The movie also shows how "news" is manipulated for the sensationalism and not any real newsworthy content. "If it bleeds it leads" is the axiom.
     

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