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Actor’s epically deranged performance
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THE most frightening thing about Jake Gyllenhaal in “Nightcrawler” is his smile. They invented the word “creepy” for that smile — a goofy, confident grin that reaches its full breadth just when you’re starting to realize how deranged this guy really is.
Gyllenhaal’s bold, committed performance makes “Nightcrawler” one of the most entertaining movies of the year — though hardly the most profound. The film seeks to convey the seaminess of local TV news, summed up by the phrase “If it bleeds, it leads.” The thing is: We already knew this.
But that doesn’t mean that “Nightcrawler” isn’t a compelling and altogether impressive directorial debut for screenwriter Dan Gilroy (“The Bourne Legacy”). Gilroy starts slowly, then ups the pace until we’re truly breathless by the end of the final action scene. It’s a doozy, gorgeously handled by cinematographer Robert Elswit, who makes nighttime Los Angeles a simultaneously chilling and beautiful place.
Gyllenhaal plays Lou Bloom, a forlorn petty thief. But soon, on his nocturnal travels, Lou discovers the “nightcrawlers” — freelance cameramen who follow police scanner traffic to grisly scenes.
Transfixed, he sells his bike to buy a scanner and cheap camera, and he’s off. At first he’s lost, filming mundane things like someone taking a breathalizer test. But soon, he gets the point.
Acquiring explicit footage one night of a gasping carjack victim, Lou takes it to KWLA, where Nina (Rene Russo), news director on the graveyard shift, knows she’s found a great source of sleaze for her low-rated broadcast.
Gradually Lou gets bolder and the scope of his ambition becomes apparent. Lou becomes not just the guy who gets to the scene first, but the guy who sets up the crime.
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