Within Nightcrawler I wrote the following:
Writer/director Dan Gilroy uses Lou to create a narrative driven by the old saying in network news, “if it bleeds, it leads”, and TV news producer Nina (Rene Russo) is quite specific when describing for Lou the kind of content she wants: “Think of our newscast as a screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut.” Yeah, there’s no sugar-coating here as Nina isn’t afraid to ask (and pay) for what we’ll get her the ratings and Lou isn’t afraid to get it for her, but the deeper he gets into nightcrawling, the further he’ll go for the shot and we’re talking about going well beyond putting the camera in the face of bleeding victims. It’s the moments Lou arrives at a crime scene before the cops that things really start to get dirty.
Now Open Road has sent over the clip referenced above featuring Russo and Jake Gyllenhaal as Lou. The film hits theaters on October 31. Read my full review here and check out the clip and one more directly below.
Nightcrawler is a pulse-pounding thriller set in the nocturnal underbelly of contemporary Los Angeles. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Lou Bloom, a driven young man desperate for work who discovers the high-speed world of L.A. crime journalism. Finding a group of freelance camera crews who film crashes, fires, murder and other mayhem, Lou muscles into the cut-throat, dangerous realm of nightcrawling — where each police siren wail equals a possible windfall and victims are converted into dollars and cents. Aided by Rene Russo as Nina, a veteran of the blood-sport that is local TV news, Lou blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story.
