MOVIE REVIEW: Night Crawler

My brother usually watches a movie in the evening, and I just happened to join him for Nightcrawler, starring Jake Gyllenhaal. This is, so far, the best performance by Gyllenhaal. He plays a young and dynamic ethical entrepreneur in his pursuit to be a legendary news exclusive video producer.

I have always admired his performances in Donnie Darko and Prince of Persia, but this one truly showed what he is capable of as an actor. It also struck a chord in me at a time of joblessness. The movie starts with him playing the role of an unemployed youngster, Louis Bloom, who reaches a point in his life where he realizes, in order to gain something you need to give something up. He is looking for jobs, trying to impress employers as much as possible, however, he still ends up without work. During one job interview, Bloom said something that ignited a dormant feeling within me. He said that if you want to win the lottery, first, you must make the money to buy a lottery ticket. Bloom follows this rule at all costs, until he comes across a group of stringers filming a crime scene. Stringers are newspaper correspondents not on the regular newspaper staff, who work on a part-time basis reporting on particular events. He’s intrigued by stringers, who often reach a crime scene before the cops. He discovers that this is his calling and pursues a career as a freelance video producer. His pursuit is inhumane and unpredictable, albeit he remains professional from the beginning to the end.

Ashi M. Idicula

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