'Nightcrawler': Uneasy Does It

By Michael S. GoldbergeriBerkshires Film Critic
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Popcorn Column
by Michael S. Goldberger  

Open Road Films
Jake Gyllenhaal's sociopathic Lou slithers through underbelly of modern television journalism.

Whether you deem director Dan Gilroy's "Nightcrawler" a tale of unbridled American ambition or a study of the gray area between sociopathy and psychopathy, the sheer chutzpah of its title character will have you mesmerized.

He is Jake Gyllenhaal's superbly etched Louis Bloom, a petty thief when first we meet him, but about to make an epiphanic vocational discovery. It happens one night while out stealing. He observes a freelance reporter filming an auto accident for potential sale to the local TV station. Hmm, I think I'd be good at that, surmises the loner.

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Fact is, Lou, whom you may now add to the list of great movie crazies, is a quick study who could probably be good at anything to which he set his bogglingly disturbed mind. He studies about it on the computer, and faster than you can say Mad Hatter, has it mastered. Only thing we wonder, and here's the film's big flaw, is why has it taken him so long to actualize his profound ability? The amateur psychologist in us is just champing at the bit with curiosity, eager to know the backstory and learn from whence sprang this peculiarity. Alas, it is not forthcoming.

What you see is what you get ... leaving us to conjecture and mull on our own the extreme deviations, aberrations and infinite routes the human brain is capable of taking. What's most frightening whenever such a personality is so realistically portrayed on the silver screen is the eerie thought that such folk are flitting around us, perhaps even concocting their nasty schemes right under our oblivious noses. Lou, for example, is an expert at filtering in and out, unnoticed, of situations where so-called normal people are just going about their business.

He has other survival skills, too. But what makes him an extreme metaphor, an apt symbol of what writer-director Gilroy wants to say about society and its idea of success is that he so wants … wants desperately, and has no compunction about satisfying his every desire. If there's some rationalization process at work behind his staring, sometimes lunatical gaze and his direct, seemingly scripted explanations and inquiries, it is imperceptible.

Another alarming thought is that, if Louis Bloom's status seeker is in any way the current successor to Dreiser's Clyde Griffiths in "An American Tragedy," then the difference between the two men is a horribly telling contemplation of the present day. You see, Clyde, striving as he was to make good during the Roaring Twenties, and despite the terrible thing he did, ultimately had a conscience.


Of course, such a thing would only be a useless detriment to Lou's zealous trajectory. Oh sure, like most politicians, he'll use a moral argument on those perceived weaklings who he estimates will buy it. And truth be told, there is a guilty thrill to observing someone cutting out all of life's red tape. But sadly, I fear some viewers frustrated by the haves and have-nots reality of the world we live in will not only vicariously cheer his single-minded passion, but even see it as heroic. Such is the cynically modern Robin Hood, taking from whomever and giving to himself.

That chillingly public service message aside, this is an action-packed, absorbing and hauntingly exciting delve into the underbelly of modern broadcast journalism. Balancing its madly delivered murder, mayhem and even a first class chase scene, an equally angry indictment of how TV news is gathered will have your head swirling in disconcertion. Dracula has nothing on these contemporary monsters who prey on society's fears for fun and profit.

Filmmaker Gilroy cleverly weaves his realistic horrors with a love story that contains a twist. Well, a love story as far as Louis is concerned. The object of his affection, nay, obsession, really doesn't know what to make of the dude on first blush. Played with brazenly honest vulnerability, Rene Russo is Nina, a news director staring into the void of irrelevance if she doesn't hike her ratings. And Lou, a rising superstar on the midnight news gathering scene, knows it. Ah, the politics of romance.

Complementing these two fine performances, Riz Ahmed is aces as Rick, the drifter Lou hires to be his helper. It is interesting to note that the thumbprint the protagonist seeks in an assistant is the same, tried and true dysfunctional profile employed by history's great despots. How Lou Svengalis the mentally disordered drifter into doing his bidding, including, but not limited to the doctoring up of crime scenes to make them more ghastly, is a discomfiting portent of things to come. Add it all up and "Nightcrawler" is a compelling ugliness sure to make your skin creep.

"Nightcrawler," rated R, is an Open Road Films release directed by Dan Gilroy and stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo and Riz Ahmed. Running time: 117 minutes

 

 

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Clarksburg Sees Race for Select Board Seat

CLARKSBURG, Mass. — The town will see a three-way race for a seat on the Select Board in May. 
 
Colton Andrews, Seth Alexander and Bryana Malloy returned papers by Wednesday's deadline to run for the three-year term vacated by Jeffrey Levanos. 
 
Andrews ran unsuccessfully for School Committee and is former chairman of the North Adams Housing Authority, on which he was a union representative. He is also president of the Pioneer Valley Building Trades Council.
 
Malloy and Alexander are both newcomers to campaigning. Malloy is manager of industrial relations for the Berkshire Workforce Board and Alexander is a resident of Gates Avenue. 
 
Alexander also returned papers for several other offices, including School Committee, moderator, library trustee and the five-year seat on the Planning Board. He took out papers for War Memorial trustee and tree warden but did not return them and withdrew a run for Board of Health. 
 
He will face off in the three-year School Committee seat against incumbent Cynthia Brule, who is running for her third term, and fellow newcomer Bonnie Cunningham for library trustee. 
 
Incumbent Ronald Boucher took out papers for a one-year term as moderator but did not return them. He was appointed by affirmation in 2021 when no won ran and accepted the post again last year as a write-in.
 
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