The night is not the same as the day

If you're seeing me, you're having the worst day of your life

The first time I visited Disneyland was also the first time I visited Los Angeles. That was exactly 20 years ago, and on a few occasions I've revisited L.A. but it wasn't until just five years ago that I saw the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame for the first time. For as long as I can remember from back then, I had been eager to see the iconic sidewalk; thinking how awesome it would be to see the hand prints of some of the most famous stars in Hollywood history cemented on the street for everyone to see. What I saw was the polar opposite as my father made that momentous right turn on North Cherokee Avenue, as I saw many closed down shops, homeless people, beggars, over-flowing

trash cans, stray dogs walking all over the streets and people cussing each other out from their cars. My illusion of what I thought was a glamorous landscape instead turned out to be a wasteland nightmare. In Nightcrawler, capturing the ugliness and dark hell of the City of Angels is the objective for the eerily creepy Louis Bloom (dutifully played by Jake Gyllenhaul), a vagabond jack-of-all-trades looking to make it big in the city. On one particular night, Lou witnesses a car accident as police officers struggle to get the victim out of the burning vehicle. A van shows up on the scene and two men with video cameras record the whole ordeal. The two men are referred to as nightcrawlers, individuals that record events as they occur and sell the footage to news stations for money. At that moment, Louis takes an interest in nightcrawling, pursuing to become successful

at whatever method at any cost. Half film noir and half exposition, Nightcrawler weaves a dark tale of people with moral-less ambitions and the hidden mechanics of what goes on behind the scenes in news broadcasting. Jake Gyllenhaul dissolves into his character, his performance being the standout of the whole film. It's the rare type of character that you grow to hate but can't wait to see what he'll do next. Nightcrawler is one of those movies that will stick with you long after you've finished watching. It deals with subject matters that are so dark that I couldn't even fathom how it must be in real life. It also questions certain actions that take place in the film which also occur in real life: is it morally wrong to broadcast news pieces with graphic images on T.V. even though people have a right to know what's going on? Should a person be entitled to have the capacity to warp a story for their own needs? Nightcrawler kept me intrigued all the way to the sweet-bitter end, and serves us as a reminder that an individual's ego is just as dangerous as our ambition to succeed; it can lead to our own downfall but in rare outcomes it can also be the result of our success. Nightcrawler gets my highest recommendation.


-Reviewed by Razor, 3/20/15