Nightcrawler (film)
Nightcrawler is a 2014 American thriller film directed and written by Dan Gilroy (in his directorial debut) and co-produced by and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, with Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, and Bill Paxton in supporting roles. Gyllenhaal plays 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. A common theme in the film is the symbiotic relationship between unethical journalism and consumer demand.
Nightcrawler
Dan Gilroy
- Michel Litvak
- Jake Gyllenhaal
- David Lancaster
- Jennifer Fox
- Tony Gilroy
- Jake Gyllenhaal
- Rene Russo
- Riz Ahmed
- Bill Paxton
- Open Road Films (United States)
- Sierra/Affinity[1] (International)
- September 5, 2014 (TIFF)
- October 31, 2014 (United States)
117 minutes[2]
United States
English
$8.5 million[3]
$50.3 million[3]
Gilroy originally wanted to make a film about the life of American photographer Weegee but switched focus after discovering the unique narrative possibilities surrounding the stringer profession. He wrote Lou as an antihero, based on the ideas of unemployment and capitalism. Gyllenhaal played a pivotal role in the film's production, from choosing members of the crew to watching audition tapes. Filming took place over the course of four weeks and was a challenging process that included over 80 locations.
To promote Nightcrawler, Open Road Films utilized viral marketing strategies, including a fictional video résumé on Craigslist and fake social media profiles for Lou. Nightcrawler premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival and grossed $50.3 million on a production budget of $8.5 million and gained a cult following[4] over the years. The film was met with widespread praise, with critics highlighting Gilroy's screenplay and Gyllenhaal and Russo's performances. Several critics listed Nightcrawler as one of the best films of 2014 and it received various accolades, including a Best Original Screenplay nomination at the 87th Academy Awards.
Plot[edit]
Petty thief Louis "Lou" Bloom is caught stealing from a Los Angeles railyard by a security guard. He attacks the guard, steals his watch and leaves with stolen manhole covers, fencing, and other materials. While trying to sell the materials at a scrap yard, Lou asks for a job, but the foreman, who has already been questioned by police looking for the manhole covers, refuses to hire a thief. While driving home in his beat-up Toyota Tercel, Lou sees a car crash and pulls over. Stringers—freelance photojournalists—arrive and record two police officers pulling a woman from the burning wreckage. One of the stringers, Joe Loder, explains to Lou that they sell their footage to local news stations.
Inspired, Lou steals an expensive bicycle and pawns it for a camcorder and a police radio scanner. After two unsuccessful attempts at recording incidents, Lou records the aftermath of a fatal carjacking and sells the footage to KWLA 6. The morning news director, Nina Romina, tells him the station is especially interested in footage of "graphic" accidents and violent crime in affluent, predominantly white areas. Lou hires an assistant, Rick, a young homeless man desperate for money. To give his footage more impact, Lou tampers with crime scenes, in one case moving a body to get a better camera angle. As Lou's work gains traction, he buys better equipment and a faster car (a red Dodge Challenger).
Lou pressures Nina into a date, telling her he knows she is desperate for higher ratings. On their date, he threatens to terminate his business with Nina unless she has sex with him, and it is implied that she acquiesces. Lou turns down an offer to work for Joe, but when Joe beats him to an important plane crash story, Nina demands that Lou get better footage and keep his end of their bargain. In retaliation, Lou sabotages Joe's Ford Econoline van; when it crashes, Joe is severely injured and Lou records the aftermath.
Later, Lou and Rick arrive before the police at the site of a triple-homicide home invasion in Granada Hills. Lou records footage of the gunmen leaving in their Cadillac Escalade and of the victims in the house, and later presents footage to the station with the perpetrators edited out. The news staff frets over the ethics of the footage but Nina is eager to break the story. In exchange, Lou demands public credit and more money. Police detective Frontieri shows up at Lou's apartment to question him about his connection to the home invasion. He gives her edited footage of the incident, cutting out the parts with the gunmen.
That night, Lou and Rick track down the driver to his house, staking out the house until he leaves to pick up his partner. Lou wants to follow them to a more crowded public area, then call the police and record the ensuing confrontation. Alarmed, Rick demands half of the reward money for locating the gunmen, threatening to tell the police about Lou's withholding of evidence. After some back-and-forth, Lou agrees.
When the gunmen stop at a restaurant, Lou phones the police, warning them that the suspects are armed. They arrive and exchange gunfire. A police officer is shot and one of the killers is gunned down while the other manages to escape in the Escalade. The police give chase. Lou and Rick follow close behind in the Challenger, filming the chase as it happens, culminating in a long multiple-car collision. After the gunman's Escalade crashes, Lou approaches the vehicle, claiming that the gunman is dead and urging Rick to film him. The gunman is revealed to be alive as he shoots Rick, flees, and is killed by arriving police officers. As Rick lies dying, Lou films him and tells him that he cannot work with someone who successfully extorted him for withholding evidence, because he knows it will happen again.
Nina is awed by the chase footage and expresses her devotion to Lou. The news team discovers that the home invasion was actually the criminals breaking in to steal cocaine that the homeowners were stashing; Nina refuses to report this information to maximize the story's impact. Police try to confiscate Lou's footage as evidence but Nina defends her right to withhold it and airs it immediately. Lou voluntarily speaks with Detective Frontieri. While being interrogated by Frontieri, Lou fabricates a story about the men in the Escalade following him; Frontieri knows he is lying, but cannot prove it. Later, Lou hires a team of interns to expand his business, saying that he will not ask them to do anything he is unwilling to do himself.
Carolyn Gilroy, the daughter of editor John Gilroy and niece of director Dan Gilroy, portrays KWLA 6 employee Jenny. Michael Papajohn, James Huang, Eric Lange, Kiff VandenHeuvel, Myra Turley, and Jamie McShane play a security guard, Joe's video assistant, a cameraman, a news editor, a neighbor, and a motorist, respectively. Detective Lieberman, Frontieri's partner, is portrayed by Price Carson. Journalists Kent Shocknek, Pat Harvey, Sharon Tay, Rick Garcia, and Bill Seward appear as themselves.
Analysis[edit]
According to Dean Biron of Overland, "Nightcrawler is a shattering critique of both modern-day media practice and consumer culture."[6] Throughout the film, Nina sensationalizes news headlines in an attempt to increase viewership. PopMatters' Jon Lisi believes that, because of Nina's actions, the film specifically targets journalists who exaggerate headlines in order to combat a decline in viewership.[7] Ed Rampell of The Progressive offers similar commentary, stating: "Nightcrawler contends that ethnic and class biases are used to determine what is, and is not, deemed 'worthy' of news coverage. Local politics and related matters that actually affect viewers' lives get short shrift."[8] As much as the film indicts modern journalism, Nightcrawler's director Dan Gilroy noted that his goal was for audiences to realize that by watching sensationalized news stories, they themselves are encouraging unethical journalism.[9] Biron argues that Lou's character in the film is created because of consumer demand, and that he is a "reflection of the symbiotic relationship between commercial imperatives and audience desire".[6] Critics Alyssa Rosenberg and Sam Adams argue that Nightcrawler is not so much a critique of journalism, but instead a depiction of Lou's entitlement.[10][11]
The exact genre of Nightcrawler has been the subject of debate.[12] While most critics agree that the film predominantly features thriller elements, other descriptions have been used, including dark comedy,[12][13] drama,[12][14] horror,[14][15] and neo-noir.[16][17] When asked about the film's genre, Gilroy stated: "I see Nightcrawler as having genre elements in the sense that it's a thriller. It also has some strong dramatic elements and I think I understand the question as there's some really strong elements of drama."[12] Gyllenhaal particularly noted the comedic elements, commenting: "Gilroy and I were laughing pretty much the whole movie."[18]
Marketing[edit]
According to Open Road Films CEO Tom Ortenberg, the company attempted to market Nightcrawler to both mainstream audiences and art house critics. "We had material that portrayed the picture as the commercial property that it is, but not while abandoning its indie roots", says Ortenberg.[48] The first trailer was released on July 23,[49] while a red band trailer was released on October 24.[50] In addition to typical trailers, Nightcrawler also used some unusual viral marketing strategies. On July 19, a fictional video résumé for Lou was posted on Craigslist. In the video, Lou discusses his benefits for potential employers.[51] A few months later, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles were created for Lou. These profiles purport the video production business that Lou runs in the film to be real, and endorse Lou's management and strategic planning skills.[11]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
In North America, Nightcrawler earned $500,000 from early screenings, and after opening to 2,766 theaters, grossed $3.2 million on its first day of release.[48][61] It finished its opening weekend with $10.9 million;[62] journalists attributed the low sales to Halloween festivities.[61][62] In its second weekend, Nightcrawler dropped forty-nine percent in sales, and grossed $5.4 million.[63] After grossing $28.8 million by December, Nightcrawler reentered North American theaters due to several nominations during the 2014 film awards season.[64] The film eventually finished with $32.4 million in North America.[42]
In the United Kingdom, Nightcrawler opened to £1 million ($1.33 million), and grossed an additional £545,221 ($725,563) in its second weekend.[65][66] The film would eventually earn $18 million in international territories, and when combined with its North American sales, earned $50.3 million.[42] Despite its low production budget, Ortenberg believes that Nightcrawler was able to succeed at the box office by word-of-mouth marketing. "College kids, cinephiles, mainstream moviegoers across the country as well as critics and bloggers started taking possession of Nightcrawler as their own and championed it. It became a cause for people to promote it and get it seen", says Ortenberg.[48]
Critical response[edit]
The website Rotten Tomatoes aggregated an approval rating of 95% for the film based on 279 reviews and an average rating of 8.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Restless, visually sleek, and powered by a lithe star performance from Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler offers dark, thought-provoking thrills."[67] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 76 out of 100, based on reviews from 45 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[68] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.[69]
Reviewers call Gyllenhaal's character a "charming sociopath" and his performance "a bravura, career-changing tour-de-force".[70][71] Film critic Christy Lemire called Gyllenhaal's performance "supremely creepy" and praised the film's themes and messages.[72] Christopher Orr of The Atlantic compared Gyllenhaal to a young Robert De Niro and his performances in the films Taxi Driver (1976) and The King of Comedy, feeling Gyllenhaal's character harbored traits shared by De Niro's characters in the two films. Orr called Gyllenhaal "tremendous" in the role and stated that the actor was learning to "channel an eerie, inner charisma, offering it up in glimpses and glimmers rather than all at once". He also declared the role as Gyllenhaal's "best performance to date".[73] Ben Sachs of the Chicago Reader highlighted Gilroy's direction, and how he was able to command an "uncommon assurance" from the cast and crew, despite being a first time director.[74] Conversely, Richard Roeper felt that Gyllenhaal's performance was merely good, and that it did not enter "new dramatic territory". He also found that Russo's character eventually becomes a caricature.[75]
Keith Uhlich of The A.V. Club named Nightcrawler the eighth-best film of 2014.[76] Its screenplay was ranked the ninth best of the 2010s in WhatCulture: "This feverous script succeeds because it contains one of modern cinema's greatest character [sic], Lou Bloom- macabre, ruthless, brazenly tranquil yet simmering with a latent violence [...] Gilroy opts for one-word sentences which zip across the page like Bloom's Dodge Challenger tearing down the interstate for the next car crash or burn victim." The writer also argued that the trajectory of the main character "plays to our guilt over our voyeurism- we consume the footage which men like Bloom provide, we allow the likes of him to rise in society".[77]