Nightcrawler [Blu-ray]

Ahead of its time just slightly, this movie may hit too close to home in this day and age. Gyllenhaal is brilliant in this twisted tale of getting ahead in the cutthroat world of news media. This is a fascinating, dark cautionary tale that will haunt you for a while.

I use this movie to fall asleep sometimes. Not that it's boring, quite the opposite. There is just something relaxing about the mostly night scenes, the music, and The way Gyllenhaal speaks in the film that is somehow comforting. Even though he is a sociopath, Lou Bloom is very likable.One of the best movies.

An amazing movie, but I give only 4 stars because the digital version has the image is deformed, that means how made the transfer in digital got done wrong a lot of details to make the image to fit right in the screen

The first thing that can be said about this film is intense. This is a film which is simply about a man, Louis, played by Gyllenhaal, who decides to get involved in independent filming of basically crimes and tragedies that happen at night in the city of LA and sells them to news stations. Gyllenhaal does an Oscar worthy performance as the main character, whom basically is a misanthropic Sociopath. Now when you’re talking about an actor playing a character with such a character type, this can be unconvincing in so many ways. But quite frankly, his acting of Louis is some of; if not the best character acting I have seen this year. His portrayal of Louis literally makes your skin crawl as he pushes the edge, and then right over what can be considered moral sensibility for what should and should not be filmed, and does it in a way which over the course of the movie slowly sneaks up on you. In one since I hate his character, he is an absolute sociopathic scumbag, but at the same time I love his character because I cannot praise Gyllenhaal enough for his performance.This movie made me feel like I needed to take a shower after watching it; it engrosses you in a way that you may find yourself feeling like you yourself have done something wrong just by watching what takes place. And this isn’t because the movie is some slasher porn, but because what Louis shoots and goes through with by the end of the film, is so morally backwards, and you can see Gyllenhaal play a character to a T of someone who literally I would define as a sociopath, complete absence of the emotional responses that a normal person should have.This movie is gritty, original, intense, and action packed. One that has huge re-watch value and should not be missed. If edge of your seat thrillers are your thing. You will do no better than this film. Absolutely amazing!

My review is more of a 4.5Thanks for reading!𝑰'𝒅 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒎𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖'𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒅𝒂𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆.𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒓 is a 2014 American neo-noir psychological thriller film written and directed by Dan Gilroy in his directorial debut. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Louis "Lou" Bloom, a stringer who records violent events late at night in Los Angeles and sells the footage to a local television news station. Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, and Bill Paxton also star.The tradition of ‘night-crawling’ has long been inspired by the work of Arthur Fellig (‘Weegee’): a photographer active in the 1930s whose publications featured grotesque and borderline controversial portrayals of crime, death, and significant injury. Fellig’s particular style was developed secondarily to his tendency to prowl the streets looking for emergency services for a lead: with his arrival at some scenes occurring before the necessitated personnel.Fast forward to today, and few people have procured as much attention as the Raishbrook brothers: the owners of Raishbrook Media Group who also work in Los Angeles. Having worked as advisors during the production of 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒓, Gilroy and Gyllenhaal were taken on ride-alongs to get a general feel for the scenarios they willingly and enthusiastically engage with: emphasizing the lack of disregard for personal safety required for this line of employment. In need of licenced footage for any of the newsroom related scenes, the Raishbrook Brothers also unsurprisingly made their own available for use.(Sidenote; A mini-series about this group can be found on Netflix entitled 𝑺𝒉𝒐𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑫𝒂𝒓𝒌; it’s extravagantly self-worshiping at times, but it’s also insightful in spurts)No stranger to roles requiring a transformation, nothing comes close to Gyllenhaal’s metamorphosis into the likes of Lou Bloom. Physically speaking, Bloom’s gaunt appearance was achieved through a loss of approximately 30 pounds (and maintaining an obsessive gym regime while filming): making for a terrifying demeanor when paired with his enormously large and dramatically expressive eyeballs. On paper, Lou is a textbook psychopath, with Gyllenhaal’s performance upping the ante in terms of unnerving suspense and vitriolic pizzaz. Despite some casting choices making for predictable interactions - since social inequity seems to play out thematically as a discreet way of setting the mood - the delivery of 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒓’s thrills and conclusions supersedes the perceived inevitability of them.Self-aware and aloof, 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒓 refuses to go into detail as it concerns Bloom’s particular backstory, with the omission of this information being far from a coincidence. Interestingly enough, Gilroy has stated previously that an explanation of sorts was originally included in his script, but it was removed with the intent of allowing viewers to project their own thoughts onto the screen with little concern as to whether or not they force a connection with the subject matter in a significant way.To call 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒓 an impractical or inefficiently equipped character study would be negligible at best, however, as the narrative is less about who Lou is and more about the domain he inadvertently becomes tethered to. On one hand, there is validation in the complaints that could be made about the exaggeration of Bloom’s pathology as potentially distracting, but when thought of as an illustration of characteristics needed to succeed amongst ethically dubious circumstances (Adjectives like 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆, 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕, and 𝒉𝒚𝒑𝒐𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 come to mind, to name a few). . . much of Loui’s behavior starts to make the tiniest bit of sense.In a self-referential way, it’s equally easy to forget that Bloom is far from acting on his own: speaking simplistically, he’s double-dealing in a line of employment that also depends on a perverse manifestation of supply and demand.The implications are more than capable of forcing some viewers (and, spoiler alert, I’m one of them) into a vector of self-reflection regardless of their relationship with questionable sources of entertainment or news.There’s simply no way that my morbid curiosity (in lieu of being cognizant of my own surroundings) has an effect on a journalist’s own sense of objectivity or integrity.I hope so, anyway.I say this while I doomscroll into the oblivion on a regular basis. I say this while I casually use 𝑨𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝑺𝒉𝒐𝒐𝒕𝒆𝒓: 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂 𝑼𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑭𝒊𝒓𝒆 as background noise while I write the very review you’re reading now.On standard devices, the literal space between the buttons used to 𝑹𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒅 and 𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌 are kept to a minimum, and sometimes even one in the same; It is perhaps in the same way that the metaphorical gap between bystanders and content creators may be codependently attached.