Nightcrawler (2014)

Academy Awards, USA 2015

Nominee Oscar

Best Writing, Original Screenplay Dan Gilroy

Open Road Films
Directed by Dan Gilroy
My rating: 3.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(Blu-ray, Universal)

Jake Gyllenhaal plays an amoral thief who becomes a "stringer": racing to the scene of crimes and selling video to the local news. He soon finds out that the bloodier the video the more money he can make. Rene Russo is the news director with whom he finds a common bond and manipulates her for both money and sex. He hires Riz Ahmed as an assistant, who is desperate for any job at all and works for next to nothing. Gyllenhaal becomes obsessed with fame and money, staging scenes for dramatic effect and eventually becoming involved with a crime himself. He tips off the police and plans to film a dramatic arrest, which goes horribly wrong but makes for great TV. Gyllenhaal is chillingly effective as one of the most vile antiheroes in recent memory. Ahmed is excellent as his moral foil and Russo is perfectly cast as the desperate middle aged news director. It takes place mostly at night on the streets of LA, hypnotically captured by cinematographer Robert Elswit.