Nightcrawler (8/10): Dan Gilroy and Jake Gyllenhaal channeling Scorsese and De Niro

“That's my job, that's what I do, I'd like to think if you're seeing me you're having the worst day of your life.”

Dan Gilroy’s feature debut is not only an impressive and dark character study of a persistent and ambitious man, but it also is a social critique of our culture’s obsession over bloody and graphic news stories. It would be easy for Gilroy to center his screenplay on the cheap criticism of today’s TV news stations motto, “If it bleeds, it leads,” but it goes beyond that and makes us wonder why we as an audience eat up those news stories. There is a reason why the media feeds us these graphic stories and it is because we have this morbid fascination for these kind of stories. That is exactly what Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo’s characters represent in this amoral and dark film. It’s not only a criticism towards criminal journalism, but a sharp critique on our society’s fascination with graphic and bloody images. Robert Elswit captures this dark mood through his camera lense to give us a different and stylish view of Los Angeles than what we are used to seeing on film. 

Nightcrawler reminded me a lot of Scorsese’s work in Taxi Driver. Jake Gyllenhaal’s Louis Bloom seems to be in some distant way related to De Niro’s Travis Bickle. Both these characters are dark and psychotic, while at the same time having some sort of charm that attracts us to them. Bloom is a determined and ambitious young man who becomes fascinated with the possibilities in the journalistic world. He likes to drive around at night and is drawn to violence. Unlike Travis Bickle, he has no sympathy for anyone and simply wants to make a career out of his freelancing camera work. The more violence he can capture in his camera, the better opportunities he will have to succeed. There are no moral boundaries when it comes to his work and the transformation he goes through in the film is subtilely played by Gyllenhaal. Jake Gyllenhaal is at his best when he plays these sort of dark characters that move around at night (Prisoners, Zodiac, and Donnie Darko come to mind). 

Rene Russo also delivers an impressive performance and plays a huge role in Bloom’s ascendence as a nightcrawler. The power shift between her character and Bloom is portrayed really well in this film. She seems to be in control of the relationship during their first encounters in the news station, but as Bloom rapidly ascends in the business he takes control of his own destiny. There is an interesting dynamic going on between these two characters and in the end they aren’t too different from each other putting their careers before others. How these two actors were ignored by the Academy for their performances is beyond me, but this film wouldn’t have worked as well as it did if it weren’t for those two powerhouse performances. Bill Paxton and Riz Ahmed also give interesting supporting performance. Ahmed (who was also great in Four Lions) plays Rick, a personal assistant of Bloom who is easily manipulated by him, and Paxton is a night journalist who Bloom perceives as his competition. The cast in this film deliver solid roles, but it’s Jake Gyllenhaal who carries the film with his impressive physical transformation. As big of a star as he is, he disappears and becomes this amoral man who will stop at nothing to get to the crime scene first. He gives a magnetic performance and as an audience you never know what to expect next from him. Kudos to Dan Gilroy on his feature debut for delivering such a wonderful thriller and having had the vision to cast Gyllenhaal for a role he was meant to play.

My Review: Four Lions (9/10)

"We are the four lions"

Chris Morris's Four Lions is in my opinion the funniest British film of the last decade (sorry Wright and Pegg, I loved your work, but this was just hilarious). Morris took a huge risk by deciding to make a comedy about a group of terrorist friends that are planning their attack somewhere in the city, and it really payed off because this dark slapstick comedy worked extremely well. In papers you would never think this sort of comedy could work because it is just too dark of a subject matter, but somehow Morris manages to create a buddy comedy around this group of incompetent terrorists. Morris, who also  co-wrote the script with Sam Bain and Simon Blackwell (In the Loop), managed to deliver a smart comedy in what easily could've been a tasteless film. I would've never imagined to find a film about violent jihads to be funny, but this provocative film works really well and deserves to be seen. It is a small independent film, but has some really strong performances from the ensemble cast and several hilarious scenes that had me bursting out loud in laughter. A scene involving a sheep and one of the jihads comes to mind here. There were several more similar scenes that had a similar effect on me. This satire might be a little too dark for some audiences, but it was the kind of comedy I find provocative since it doesn't try to explore the reasons why these people behave like this, but rather just focuses on the ridiculousness of it all. Four Lions blew me away (no pun intended here).

Four Lions focuses on a group of British friends that are trying to form a terrorist cell (wannabe jihads). Omar (Riz Ahmed) and Barry (Nigel Lindsay) are the leaders of the group and there seems to be a power struggle between the two. Omar is actually more of a leader since Barry has more heart and passion than brains. They are devout Muslims, but don't seem very menacing. The other members of the group are Waj (Kayvan Novak) who comes up with stupid ideas like blowing up the internet, Faisal (Adeel Akhtar) who is quiet and reserved and tries to teach crows how to carry explosive devices, and Hassan (Arsher Ali) who likes to add a hip hop flavor to his video communiques. The friends spend most of their time debating about doctrine and ways they should send out their message against the sinful Western culture they live in. The more they discuss and clash about their ideologies the more idiotic they seem. These men are more of a threat to themselves than to the rest of society, but they are determined to get their message across.

Some of the funniest moments of Four Lions involve the power struggle between Barry and Omar as they clash to prove to the others who is a better leader. Omar has an influence on Waj, who is easily manipulated, while the rest of the gang don't know really what they are doing. However the film doesn't only make fun of these radical muslims, it also makes fun of the police, normal citizens, and even pacific muslims for the way they treat women. Morris doesn't try to make these jihad friends look like villains while everyone around them are the smart people, he just satirizes everyone. Four Lions actually works more as a dark buddy comedy in which we end up caring for some of these characters despite their ridiculous ideologies. Nigel Lindsay and Kayvan Novak deliver the most laughs out of their performances. They stand out in a very provocative and hilarious comedy. I have to give Morris credit for taking such a huge risk with this dark subject matter and delivering a fun satire with some of the most memorable laugh inducing scenes I've seen.