"Nightcrawler" is Durham Library's Movie Matinee this Thursday, March 19, at 1:30.

Movie Notes by Don Bourret

I warn you at the outset that Nightcrawler boasts one of the more creepy, repellent protagonists I have seen in a long time. That said, this film is mesmerizing, a pulse-pounding neo-noir thriller that grabs and doesn’t let go. Lou Bloom (an emaciated Jake Gyllenhaal, complete with sunken eyes and smarmy manner) is a small-time thief in L.A. seeking a more promising career. When one night he stumbles on a fiery accident scene swarming with freelance video photojournalists (aka, nightcrawlers), he finds his calling.

Armed with a police scanner and camcorder (paid for with a stolen high-end bicycle), he quickly learns his trade on the job by observing others in this gonzo journalism business. He soon is racing hellbent through the nighttime streets, guided by an assistant with a GPS, following leads to fires, murders, bloody accidents, all sorts of mayhem, always wanting to be the first on the scene with the best close-up shots before the police shut the scene down, and the first to get it to a news station with the best price. Lou is a functioning sociopath, unnerving when constantly mouthing platitudes from an online business course he studied; but he soon becomes one of the best in his trade, known for his overly-graphic, even shocking footage. But this is L.A., where “If it bleeds, it leads,” one old hand advises him. In one scene where a newsroom staff is debating whether they can use some particularly raw footage of dead bodies, someone quips that of course they can, “This isn’t Hartford.”

His career reaches its zenith (or nadir, depending on your point of view) when he arrives at the scene of a deadly home invasion before the police arrive and captures footage of the killers that could help the investigation. Instead of turning it in, he redacts the incriminating shots in order to pursue a bigger story, ideally a gunfight at their capture, which he will orchestrate. The finale of the film climaxes in a breakneck car chase through the L.A. night.

First time director Dan Gilroy has fashioned an unsettling but beautiful film; the colors and compositions of his night shots of L.A. could be a succession of master paintings. Jake Gyllanhaal is outstanding in the role, probably his best to date, a desperate, driven, hungry man who presents as normal, even likeable, but is evil at his core and can seduce others into evil. In some ways he is the cinematic cousin to Robert DeNiro’s Travis Bickel in the Martin Scorcese film Taxi Driver, another loner, this time roaming New York’s nighttime, not necessarily seeking bloody mayhem but certainly finding it. Check it out.

One of the most famous “nightcrawlers” from the past was Weegee, the pseudonym of a New York press photographer in the 30’s and 40’s. Following the city’s emergency services and documenting their activities, he was known for his stark black-and-white, unflinchingly realistic scenes of urban crime and injury, life and death. Google “Weegee” to see what I’m talking about. And see Nightcrawler. TV news may never seem the same again.