At times I have thought that he is overrated and so I have not actively made a point of scrolling through IMDB and listing his films to watch. The Donnie Darko actor really rose to fame with his stunning performance in that film. After stunning the world with a performance only comparable to that of Rusell Crowe as John Nash in A Beautiful Mind and Tommy Lee Jones as Two Face in Batman Forever, Jake Gyllenhaal really had set the bar very high for himself and the world was expecting huge things from this guy, only to be disappointed with his performance in Brokeback Mountain and the entire film of Prince of Persia. Of course, I am writing this from my perspective and undoubtedly I have missed out many films in between but that's because these were the films that changed my opinion of him quite rapidly.
I look for something that is going to wow me. I had similar opinions about Leo DiCaprio and he stunned me in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Django Unchained and The Great Gatsby. He is an example of setting the bar high, fading out for many years with some rubbish films and then relighting his career in stunning style. Seeing as Leo can do it there are high hopes for Gyllenhaal. So how did he do in Nightcrawler? I wasn't wowed but I wasn't repulsed either. Performance was good enough. Thinking of it for what it is- a young guy (not so well done by the clearly aging Gyllenhaal) is trying to become a freelance news reporter. Scanning the nights for new footage that he can sell on at a mega price he has no ideas of the real dangers involved or how to really manage business. Nothing special about the performance, nothing standout about the character- so what makes Nightcrawler something to remember? Simply- the plot. You may watch a lot of action films and you may watch a lot of RomComs, most of them don't stick in your head because they all have a similar plot. If they stick it is because there has been a standout performance, if they don't it is because there was nothing special about it and the plot wasn't good enough. This is a memorable plot.
The feel given from this film is one similar to the opening ten minutes or so of the Ryan Gosling film 'Drive'. The first ten minute I was on the edge of my seat wanting to know what was going to happen- was he going to escape? The suspense in that film was outstanding. The suspense here isn't as spectacular but the feel of a guy driving around at night filming shootouts between the police and criminals is something that makes you almost put your heart in your mouth. Is it stupid? Are they taking an unnecessary risk by approaching the scene? You don't know until you let the film play out- you have to watch the entire film and that is why everyone should watch Nightcrawler.
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