Movie review — Nightcrawler

Time and nutrients have chiseled Jake Gyllenhaal–once considered America’s widest-eyed baby boy–into the man you will see in November’s Nightcrawler, now in theatres.

The new, gaunt Jake slightly resembles a golden age Rick Campanelli who like the film’s nightcrawler, changed the way we watch TV.

If I keep going on about looks they’ll write a scathing feature about me on slate.com  so let’s chill and walk, not crawl all over Nightcrawler.

Jake plays the main crawler but there’s a few others in the movie too. The crawlers are guys in LA who aren’t scared of blood and who go around and film accidents and fires to sell to news TV. I thought news TV made their own videos but I got no problem learning new things as long as it doesn’t make me look like a stupid idiot, I mean I’m 32 for Christ’s sake.

The main cralwer starts his own crawling business and quickly rises through the ranks because he’s fucked and doesn’t care about anyone but himself and he really doesn’t mind blood at all. He’s like one of those guys in high school who I’d talk to because I felt bad for him but then after you talk to him you’re like “oh fuck him” and you’re relieved that can officially say you hate him because you’ve done your due diligence and didn’t rely on the opinion of others.

I thought we were going to see Rene Russo nude for the first time since 1999’s The Thomas Crown Affair, but nude sex between Jake and Rene was only implied and not shown. This was probably a good thing because Jake’s arms were so veiny in this fucker that if we saw the rest of him we might think he was a snake master and not a nightcrawler. I get the veins though because the movie is about news and the news always says “if it bleeds it leads” and veins make bleeding possible.

Like a grandpa who won’t shut up, this movie is telling us that we watch too much TV! But it’s also about being your own boss, which is the American dream 2.0, I think.

There isn’t much to this thing, it’s about a veiny loner who finds a new job and gets way too into it. Sounds to me like the last half of Forrest Gump, a movie about a way nicer guy.

To help me get through the movie without chewing on my jacket, I bought a combination of a medium popcorn and a medium drink. I’m such a career medium–shirts, pants, combos–that the sound of the word “medium” makes me feel at home. We were going to refill our drink on the way out so that we could sip until dinner but we forgot probably because we were mad at the nightcrawler for being such a damn doorknob.If I had a friend like that there’s no way I’d answer his emails.

I’d rate this movie “A” for “Anyway, I saw Nightcrawler” because it probably won’t be the first thing you tell your co-worker you did this weekend. I’ll probably lead with the chicken curry I made for dinner on Sunday followed by the goal I scored in hockey on Friday, then Nightcrawler. Have a great afternoon and check out the full glennmacaulay.com blog library, available on demand NOW.