Nightcrawler
Tammas Hicks, 2,28,2015There has been a lot of comparison in the review bloggosphere between Nightcrawler (Gilroy, 2014), and Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976). Parallels have been drawn between the psychopathy of Nightcrawler's Louis Bloom (Gyllenhaal) and Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle (Deniro); and in a sense they are the similar men. Both are incapable of human connection while being simultaneously lonely, both have an obsession with violence that mixes with their delusions of grandeur, and both have a visible hunger that drives them into greater and greater lengths of madness. But where Taxi Driver spends its time revealing the illness that underlies Bickle's outward charm, Nightcrawler's lens seems obsessed with avoiding the evil that reaches out at the audience almost constantly from Bloom.
The movie opens on Bloom stealing chain-link fence to sell at a scrap yard, only to be confronted by a night guard. The camera, revealing perhaps of the film's closeness to Bloom, focuses briefly on the night guard's watch. Later, when Bloom is at the scrap yard, after beating the guard unconscious, attempting to sell copper wire and chain link to an unimpressed general manager, we see him wearing the guard's watch. Bloom asks the manager for a job, pushing past obvious dislike, only to be rejected; but immediately he returns to his superficial politeness. Driving home from his encounter Bloom comes across a Night Crew videotaping the wreckage of a car crash, while police attempt to pull a body from the burning car, and is immediately obsessed. He steals a bike the next day and attempts to sell it to a similarly unimpressed pawn shop owner for twice what the owner is offering; only to end up settling for a camera and a police scanner.
Therein lies the essence of Nightcrawler: The juxtapostion of Bloom's heroic self image, and the almost universal distaste that the world holds for him. Much like the grease in Bloom's hair, his oiliness sits like a sheen atop the entire film. When he introduces himself to potential coworkers his large and toothy smile seems forced, provoking a recoil. When Bloom tries to display his own intelligence he references read material, or online courses, sounding more of regurgitation than comprehension. The entirety of his character, outside of the hunger that drives him, consists of someone attempting to imitate human beings who neither truly understands them, nor cares to. Special credit must be given to the score, which seemed to reveal more about Bloom's opinion of the moment than the audience's. There was a particularly disturbing moment about midway through the film in which he blackmails a female coworker into a sexual relationship, while in the background the music is swooping and lilting as if this is our hero's romantic moment.
This is, however, something of a weakness in an otherwise outstanding movie. The script occasionally pushes too hard, or the music seems too at odds with the moment, or both Bloom and the news station get away with actions which would fly by no police department. These are the moments when the movie slips from character study into satire, and are its least entertaining. Whether the movie is harping on the evil's of fear based new's coverage, or replaying the same bloody shot of Bloom watering a plant for which he does not actually care, it is significantly less entertaining than watching Bloom break into homes, or manipulate those around him. But these are hard raisins in what is an otherwise delicious fruitcake.
At the end of the film, with a competitor dead, his former assistant dead, having escaped charges of manslaughter, Bloom stands in front of his three new vans, and matching new employees to give a speech. Bloom closes with the words "And remember, I wouldn't ask you to do anything that I wouldn't do". By this point the audience knows exactly where that boundary lies, and how far out from human decency it sits.
