Writer-turned-director Dan Gilroy has created a fascinating, scary and original character for Jake Gyllenhaal to play. And Gyllenhaal delivered as always.
This has got to be one of this year's best original screenplay.
The way the story began with the introduction to the character, building him and his personality up onscreen; he became the subject that we were forced to get to know and be afraid of.
Yet we the audience were still so fascinated to see what evil things he would come up with next. Even up to a certain point we began rooting for him.
As a first-time director as well, Gilroy's storytelling was a masterclass. Just by having Gyllenhaal perform certain acts he could make our skin crawl. We began to oscillate between loving to hate him and hating to love him.
And as for Gyllenhaal, I have no idea where he pulled this character out of him. His performancre may be his best yet, and may be my favourite one from him. He made his character so methodical in his speaking manner that he almost appeared as a genius if you didn't know he was crazy. But at the same time, he was in fact a brilliant man. And that's what made him so scary as well.
The pacing of the movie kind of slowed down a little for me in the mid way point. There were a few ups and downs before it picked up again in the third act.
One thing that truly disappointed me in the trailer was the phrase, "If you want to win the lottery, you have to make the money to buy the ticket." In the trailers, they made this phrase seemed like his go-to quote. And I was anticipating for Gyllenhaal to scream out one of them like the way he did it in the trailer.
But in the entire movie he only said it once! Not too big a deal but I was really let down because I thought the phrase was so well-constructed and Gyllenhaal's delivery added so much layer to it and really suited his character's state of instability. That's why I was so let down.
Also, I haven't seen Rene Russo in such a long time and it's really good to see she is still in form. Riz Ahmed and Bill Paxton also delivered very good performances.
Nightcrawler was a very pleasant surprise for me as I have never heard of it until the local cinemas started playing its trailer about a month ago. And I am even more surprised they brought it in. Well done.
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