Credit: Open Road Films

Los Angeles has been filmed to death, and that’s something we can probably all agree on. Most of the time, the city gets the glamorous treatment in the movies. Thankfully, Nightcrawler has absolutely no interest in that version of the city. The film shows LA after dark, when the streets feel eerie and exposed. Oh, and don’t forget the police scanner, which usually means somebody’s terrible night is about to become somebody else’s paycheque.

That somebody is Lou Bloom. Jake Gyllenhaal plays him as a man with abundant confidence. Looking for the catch? He is completely broke! Lou begins the film stealing scrap metal and trying to sell it on, but he grabs your attention by the way he speaks. He has this relentless belief in hard work and self-improvement, so much so that it feels like he’s just got out of a business seminar.

Then he sees freelance cameramen filming the aftermath of a road accident. That’s it. Lightbulb moment. Lou finds out that television stations will pay for footage like this, especially if it is violent enough, and you get there before everyone else.

So he gets a camera and starts chasing emergency calls around Los Angeles. Before long, he meets Nina Romina, played by Rene Russo, who runs a local news programme and knows exactly what gets people watching. She wants crime that feels close enough to scare viewers at home, and Lou hears that very clearly. Probably a bit too clearly, actually.

The whole thing goes south from there. As he gets better at the job, he stops recording crime scenes and begins meddling with them, because why settle for the shot you have been given when you can make it more dramatic yourself?

Then he reaches the scene of a brutal home invasion before the police, films what he finds and realises he is sitting on far more than a juicy bit of footage. He has access to the information the police would quite like. Does he hand it over straight away? Yeah, of course he does. No, obviously not.

You see, that’s the thing with Lou. Every time you think that he’s about to stop, he finds another level. And Gyllenhaal is brilliant here because he doesn’t make Lou visibly scary. That would’ve been too easy. He is actually pretty calm most of the time, which is much worse. He will be talking about work or trying to sound professional, and for a second, you almost forget what kind of bloke you are dealing with.

Riz Ahmed is great as Rick too, mostly because Rick feels like someone you might actually know. He needs the work, so he keeps putting up with Lou even when things start getting seriously dodgy, and just then you realise, bit by bit, just how far out of his depth he is.

Dan Gilroy, making his directorial debut with Nightcrawler, doesn’t try to impose a lecture on you about television news. He just shows how the system works and lets you make up your own mind. Open for discussion, lovely!

And that’s what makes Nightcrawler the sensation it is. Lou is awful, obviously, but he only gets this far because people are willing to watch what he brings them. Funny how that works.