Movie Review: Nightcrawler

Rating: ***

I like to focus my movie reviews on those films that something stood out in terms of storytelling. Nightcrawler starring Jake Gyllenhaal was a stand-out movie for its quirky characters and unorthodox story about a freelance video producer whose methods to capture the story are .... well -- questionable. The snappy, smart and very manipulative dialog just stole the film. Jake's young, driven and slightly autistic character is a sight to watch. Listening to him alone is a cross between every cliché self-help book and general business strategy plastered all over the Internet. If you've read these books or been inspired by them, Jake's character takes it to an interesting extreme.

The movie was unique and different. Taking human actions to the ends of bad behavior, Jake's character is such a sociopath it's shocking. He descends into his power grab on the streets of LA and starts off innocent enough, but soon falls down into passionate greed to move to the top of the business -- and by any means necessary. Forget ethics and right and wrong. He just "wants what he wants" -- and that comes across with snappy, dead-on dialog that resonates in logic. I hate to give away spoilers, but the death scene at the end was so twisted it ended up being funny. You know the type of uncomfortable laughter because technically it's not funny. If you wanted an unexpected and really good movie, go see Nightcrawler.