Nightcrawler

Nightcrawler is a 2014 American neo-noir psychological thriller film written and directed by Dan Gilroy in his directorial debut. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Louis "Lou" Bloom, a stringer who records violent events late at night in Los Angeles and sells the footage to a local television news station. Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, and Bill Paxton also star. A common theme in the film is the symbiotic relationship between unethical journalism and consumer demand.

Plot
Los Angeles denizen Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) survives by scavenging and petty theft. He stumbles into a new career as a cameraman and -- armed with a camcorder and police scanner -- begins nocturnal forays across the city in search of shocking and grisly crimes. When he catches the eye of a shopworn news director (Rene Russo) who welcomes the chance to raise her station's ratings, Louis goes to increasingly greater lengths to catch the "money shot."

Why It Rocks

 * 1) It draws inspiration from classic films with similar themes like The King of Comedy, To Die For, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Taxi Driver.
 * 2) *Likewise, Lou takes inspiration from, among others, Patrick Bateman, Rupert Pupkin, and Travis Bickle.
 * 3) Excellent directing and screenplay by Dan Gilroy in his directorial debut.
 * 4) *His screenplay ends up being nominated
 * 5) James Newton Howard's soundtrack is fantastic. Unlike the large and cinematic scores that had previously defined his career, Howard composed moody electronica pieces for Nightcrawler, heavily influenced by 1980s synth.
 * 6) Louis "Lou" Bloom is what is known as a "Nightcrawler" is charming sociopath main villain protagonist character, a reporter who prowls the nights for the most gruesome footage he can gather. Louis is also a total sociopath who opens the film by attacking and perhaps murdering a security guard for his watch. Once he discovers the money in reporting, Louis devotes himself wholeheartedly to the endeavor. He blackmails his boss into sleeping with him once his position is secure, knowing that she needs his footage. Lou sabotages the brakes of a van belonging to a rival so he can film said rival dying on a stretcher. Lou later reports gang violence as a home invasion so he can create a panic-laden story of urban crime creeping into the suburbs, and later engineers a confrontation with the police in a crowded diner so he can film the resulting carnage as gang members, police and innocent civilians die. Finally, Lou follows a car chase and when one of the gang members crashes, Lou lies to his assistant Rick that the gangster is dead, causing Rick to be shot dead by the gangster once he goes over to film the body; the motive was Rick wanted more of the profits. A media sensation with his new company of Video Production News, Lou covers his lack of humanity with a seemingly friendly mask, all the while promising his new employees he'd never ask any of them to do something he wouldn't do himself.
 * 7) * It really helped that his performance by Jake Gyllenhaal was so strong
 * 8) When brushing his teeth in one scene, the calm and collected Lou suddenly has an enraged outburst where he yells at his reflection and then shatters the mirror. It's frequently brought when praising Jake Gyllenhaal's range and talent as an actor, with many viewers not even knowing which film it originally came from.
 * 9) The use of music throughout the film rather brilliantly and grimly reflects the sociopathic behavior of the characters, with melodic, inspirational, and almost religious hymns playing when Lou gets a "perfect" shot of bloody carnage, showing that Lou doesn't care about the people hurt by the crimes he's recording, but rather sees them as things that will advance his career.
 * 10) *Averting any medical help for the sole breathing survivor of the carnage. Even "cutting" that part out to the news station to evade ethical repercussions.
 * 11) When Lou is speaking with Nina in the empty news studio, he looks toward the cityscape backdrop behind the desk and says in awe, "On TV, it looks so real..." complete with a lip-quiver. It's so obviously fake that you can't help but laugh.
 * 12) *Another one is that when Lou brings his first shots to Nina and Channel 6, they hook his camera up to the computer. The first thing they see? Lou messing around with the camera, trying to get it working. He sounds downright sheepish as he mutters, "You can skip past this part."
 * 13) Louis wins. He not only manages to avoid jail time for withholding vital information from the police (and essentially murdering a whole lot of people by deliberately setting them up to die, not to mention his outright murder of Joe Loder), but his Video Production News business seems to be in bloom, taking Loder's plan of using multiple vans to film different sections of LA at the same time.
 * 14) Very well handled dark tone that doesn't tried too hard to be dark and edgy, as it helps to fit the narrative for doing correctly.
 * 15) "No bike has thirty-seven gears."

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The scene in which Lou screams and breaks his mirror can get a little over the top for some people.

Reception
Nightcrawler was met with widespread praise, with critics highlighting Gilroy's screenplay and Gyllenhaal's performance. Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, gives the film an approval rating of 95% based on 273 reviews with an average rating of 8.20/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Restless, visually sleek, and powered by a lithe star performance from Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler offers dark, thought-provoking thrills.". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 76 out of 100, based on reviews from 45 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale.

Awards
Nightcrawler was nominated for several awards, most of which went to Gyllenhaal's performance and Gilroy's screenplay. At the 87th Academy Awards, Gilroy was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The film received an additional four nominations at the 68th British Academy Film Awards, three nominations at the 20th Critics' Choice Awards, one nomination at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards, and one nomination at the 21st Screen Actors Guild Awards, but did not win any of them. It did, however, win Best Film at the 19th San Diego Film Critics Society Awards.