TORONTO — In the drama Nightcrawler, Jake Gyllenhaal plays a freelance videographer named Lou who will do just about anything to get crime scene footage on the streets of Los Angeles.
The movie marks the directorial debut of Dan Gilroy, who also wrote the script.
According to Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times, Nightcrawler is a “smart, engaged film powered by an altogether remarkable performance by Jake Gyllenhaal.”
Turan said the movie is “grounded in a disturbing reality, an extreme scenario that is troubling because it cuts close to the bone.”
Rolling Stone reviewer Peter Travers agreed.
“Nightcrawler curves and hisses its way into your head with demonic skill,” he wrote. “When the laughs come, they stick in your throat. This is a deliciously twisted piece of work. And Gyllenhaal, coiled and ready to spring, is scarily brilliant. He truly is a monster for our time.”
In the New York Times, A.O. Scott called Nightcrawler “a modest and effectively executed urban thriller” that is both suspenseful and entertaining.
Scott added: “Mr. Gyllenhaal’s performance, while not remotely persuasive, is disciplined and meticulous in its creepiness, and Mr. Gilroy keeps the audience off balance, fascinated and repelled, half rooting for Lou to succeed, and half dreading what he will do next.
“Nightcrawler is a slick and shallow movie desperate, like Lou himself, to be something more.”
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Gannett movie critics Bill Goodykoontz opined the movie could use a dose of subtlety. He called it a “cynical” film but heaped praise on Gyllenhaal, who “makes it compelling, in a twisted kind of way.”
Goodykoontz wrote: “This is a masterful performance, intense and scary. The movie is not quite his equal, but it’s still a strong statement about media and our consumption of it — and it’s not a flattering one.”
At the Guardian, Peter Bradshaw also singled out the lead actor’s work.
“Jake Gyllenhaal gives the best performance of his career,” he gushed.
But Bradshaw also gave credit to Gilroy for maintaining “dramatic tension and satirical fizz to the very last second.”
Geoffrey Macnab of The Independent said Nightcrawler is a “wonderfully creepy and ambiguous thriller” that “deliberately blurs the lines between David Cronenberg-like satire, crime thriller and horror.”
He wrote: “As its title might suggest, Nightcrawler is a slithery film on which it is hard to get a solid grip. It straddles genres, shifts perspectives and tones. Gyllenhaal, in one of his finest performances, is funny, engaging and sinister all at the same time.
“The film is both entertaining and provocative – and it gives Gyllenhaal his best role since he was out at the campfire with Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain.”
Describing the movie as “unsettling but original,” QMI Agency reviewer Bruce Kirkland opined it’s “a fascinating thriller and cautionary tale.”
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