Review of Nightcrawler (2014) by Lomeli — 27 Apr 2015

Don't buy into the hype on this one, Nightcrawler is just a mediocre character study of a hackneyed, Norman Bates-type character masquerading as some profound social commentary regarding media sensationalism and the American Dream/capitalism at its most amoral.

While Gyllenhaal gives it his all in what some would consider the most compelling performance of his career, I never entirely bought into his character because he was essentially an amalgam of every other brooding, reclusive sociopath in cinema history, and he was all too familiar a character to even remotely pique my interest.

Nightcrawler is a film that teeters uncomfortably between being realistic and illogical throughout, with vague social commentary jammed somewhere in between. It seemed like the score was absent for over half the movie's duration, but it flutters in occasionally (and awkwardly, I might add) to remind the audience of its existence.

Director Dan Gilroy also demands that the audience revel in the inhumanity depicted on screen, and is so focused upon unsettling the audience, that any message he may be trying to convey is completely diluted by this forced grittiness.

This film pales in comparison to Gone Girl in all respects.