"Nightcrawler"

By Matt Dunca
Coastal View News

To call Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) a sociopath—i.e., a person who exhibits extreme anti-social behavior, lacks a conscience, and feels no empathy for other people—is to assume that businesses are not people. If they are people, then Bloom has to be among the most perceptive, conscientious, caring, non-sociopathic people of all time, especially when it comes to his own business.

Bloom is a “stringer” aka “nightcrawler”, which is someone who trolls around city streets (L.A. in this case) in the middle of the night waiting for some kind of human disaster—whether it be a car wreck, fire, or murder—so that he can film the ghastly business and sell it to a news station eager to spice up their morning rundown.

This automatically puts Bloom in the “sleazy” category. But it’s not an over-the-top, oily-used-car-salesman sleazy. It’s more like an over-eager, nerd-who-took-some-business-classes-and-is-now-Obsessesed kind of sleazy (if there is such a thing). This is a subtle but key distinction—one that Gyllenhaal is masterful in getting right—because, insofar as we are to be icked out by Bloom, it is not because his way of comporting himself is hokey; it is because it is too measured and calculating (and, again, a bit nerdy).

Now, at first it seems like Bloom might just be like any ol’ guy desperate for a job, perhaps with the exception that he is willing to sidestep certain rules (or go the extra mile, depending on how you look at it). What he does prior to nightcrawling is go around in the middle of the night stealing chain link fencing and manhole covers to sell for scrap. So we know Bloom has no problem slinking around in the middle of the night.

But one night while driving around he comes across a car wreck. The police are already there, trying to save a woman from her burning car. Just after Bloom arrives a crew of nightcrawlers come screeching onto the scene like a pack of wild animals unconcernedly jostling those around them. They butt right into the action—getting intrusively close to the drama for the sake of the best shot.

Bloom is in awe. He thinks (a) “What an awesome job!”, (b) “Hey, I could do that!” and (c) “What a really awesome job!!” So Bloom starts his own nightcrawling business. He jumps right in, tirelessly stalking disaster—waiting, hoping, aching for the blood and gore that will help him realize his economic ambitions.

Before long, Bloom gets his foot in the door at a local news station. And then it is no time at all until he has jammed and crammed his whole maniacally single-minded self through that door and taken up residence like he owns the place.

Again, Louis Bloom isn’t much for lines he ought not cross. It is not that he sees those lines, feels their pull on his conscience, but then steps over them anyway. No, Bloom doesn’t even see the lines; or maybe he does in some cold, intellectual way (after all, it is not good business to seem like a ruthless sociopath). But he certainly does not feel as if there are any lines he should not cross; they are not part of his moral landscape.

Here I refer to his “moral landscape”. At first it is easy to think this is nonsense for Bloom—that he just doesn’t have a moral landscape. But really Bloom’s moral landscape is just different (and sick and twisted). His ethos, moral code, conscience, religion are centered on the demands of the marketplace. One might ask: How could it be wrong to make money while at the same time giving people want they want? What could be so bad about ambition? Are not diligence, creativity, and efficiency the spirit of capitalism—what drives our culture … The American Dream? Why would anyone want to thwart a small business owner?

You can guess how Bloom might answer these questions. Others—presumably without Bloom’s moral and social pathology—are happy enough to ignore their consciences and go along with this business of shock and awe because staying afloat in the competitive marketplace demands ignoring such things. But for Bloom it is hard-wired. It is natural. He is the byproduct of economic evolution—the values of capitalism are encoded in his genes.

The short of it is “Nightcrawler” is a really good movie. To my mind, this is Jake Gyllenhaal’s best performance. And as for filmmaker Dan Gilroy, he has been playing around with pretty movies that lack a soul (or any plot, or any thematic punch) for a while, but now he has finally made something worthwhile.