Nightcrawler
⛰ What It's About
Lou Bloom, a petty thief who is desperate for a job, finds his real passion which is being a "nightcrawler", a journalist who works at night to look for occurrences on the streets to capture using his camera and then sell to the channels. As soon as his reputation as a stringer starts to improve, he gradually loses his humanity to make more money. Instead of becoming an observer of the crime, he becomes a participant in the crime!
🧠 Thoughts
Overview
Lou Bloom is a selfish creep in this movie; Gyllenhaal (the actor) plays a nearly perfect sociopath: audacious, extremely intelligent, selfish, and completely lacking of any emotions at all. He'd do anything to make his business grow even if that comes at the expense of innocent people. This movie shows us how one selfish jerk may make a whole city like LA fearful of a crime that isn't real or a crime that Lou himself caused one way or another. It also shows us how man can be driven by money and how that may affect not only himself, but also other people surrounding him. Moreover, we get introduced to the world of stringers and how they long for more blood because more blood and crime = more money.
Sympathy for the Devil
Your thoughts about Lou Bloom at the beginning of the movie are radically different than at the end of the movie. At the beginning of the movie, you can notice that Lou Bloom is a hard worker who's desperate to get a job, but he can't find one, so he steals stuff for a living. He's a keen learner who spends a great deal of his time taking online courses and that makes you sympathize with him because he still can't get a job. However, as the movie progresses, your feelings towards Lou change gradually; you hate him to the utmost as you see his real self. IMO Lou progresses from the personality of an employee to that of the employer throughout the movie. At the beginning he's seeking approval of his work, but as the movie progresses, his work becomes critical to the channel and he starts acting like a stereotypical American boss: he obliges Nina (whose job depend on Lou's work) to sleep with him in exchange for continual provision of footage to her channel, he underpays his employees (Rick) and he behaves all cocky.
Criminals who Get Away with it (Spoilers Ahead)
The movie also discusses how sometimes investigators may be sure that someone is guilty, but still can't prove anything against him, so the criminal doesn't get convicted and gets away with the crime. At the end of the movie, the investigators are pretty sure that Lou Bloom is a killer, but they can't bring him to justice, so he gets away with it and pursues his business which puts more lives in danger.
Easter Egg!
In this frame, we can see that Lou and Nina (his boss who chooses what to display on the channel) are closing in on each other in an intimate way, with the murder footage rolling in the background. It shows how equally twisted their characters are, how money and greed drive both of them.
Blood = Money
Lou Bloom gradually starts to lose his humanity throughout the movie. If a crime or an incident occurs, he races to the crime scene to capture a video; that's his priority. For example, Lou reaches a place, where an incident occurred and he arrives before the police and the ambulance. Instead of helping the victims and checking whether they're alive or not, he quickly starts to mess with the crime scene and position the victims' bodies so as to appear in his video.
Creep Among us
A psycho doesn't necessarily appear to be one. In Nightcrawler, Lou Bloom is a sociopath but no one notices so except the ones who suffer from his misdeeds. He appears to people as a successful businessman who started from the bottom and arrived to what he wanted. Psychos can walk among us and we might not be able to notice their madness.
Normal Lou
Mad Lou
