Review of Nightcrawler (2014) by Paul L — 13 Dec 2015

Roger Ebert said of Fight Club, "more people will leave this movie and get in fights than will leave it discussing Tyler Durden's moral philosophy." In similar spirit I think it could be said that Nightcrawler makes more of a case for the main guy being a creep than it does for the potential amorality and cutthroat ruthlessness of modern news teams.

Writer/director Dan Gilroy must not have known (or cared?) enough what he needed in each moment of each scene to properly serve his cool and contemporary script. If he had, we would have seen fewer vague performances from his cast, and we would have felt a presentational style that suited a greater vision, rather than just settling for being fashionable and unoffensive.

Jake Gyllenhaal is very talented and it's gratifying to see once again that he delights in creating bold, believable, and uninhibited performances when inspired by fresh scripts like this one. But every actor in a film is at the mercy of those behind the camera.

This is to say that as strong as Gyllenhaal's performance is, if the director is passive or inconsistent about the flow and logic behind the way his scenes are staged, shot, and strung together, then he won't be capable of giving the right direction to his star, his supporting cast, or his crew.

Gyllenhaal is very entertaining to watch, but to what end? The movie doesn't allow his character to go anywhere, and his is the one we are supposed to follow. Had he been able to rely on the guidance of a more assured director as well as the stimulating script and his own great acting talent, the performance could have been much more affecting, I think an easy Oscar nomination.

It's not my opinion that Gilroy intentionally left drama by the wayside while only give potency to his gritty action scenes. I do not believe he got so wrapped up in the rush of making a vaguely artsy, cool movie that he sold out his vision as many do.

But I do believe that his limited directing know-how is unsuited to the kinds of tricky scenes that he wrote in his script where characters talk to each other or do strange things that the audience should understand.

Probably it's just not as obvious to him how to translate those moments on screen and create drama as it is how to throw together expensive shoot outs and car chases. This movie is smart if you're accustomed to ignoring loose-ends, but it's only worth watching for Gyllenhaal's performance, and he has given better work with better directors.