Set in modern day Los Angeles, the film is a character piece about a sociopath anti-hero Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal in one of his best screen performances to date) who becomes attracted to the paparazzi world of accident and crime news video. Armed with a camera, police scanner, and a near psychotic drive to get the grizzliest shot we watch Louis slowly become more and more engrossed in this world, stopping at nothing to top the competition in complete disregard of morals or professional ethics.
The film just reeks of the 70s. You have your Anti-hero, you have your gritty subject matter, you have the landscape of Los Angeles, you have a high octane chase sequence, one of the best filmed sequences SINCE the 70s if I might add (I do NOT count The Fast and the Furious series), and you have an improbable ending that somehow makes complete sense with one wickedly dark sense of humor. It's hard to believe that a film of this caliber could be scorned so much by the critics and generally ignored by the public following it's success at the Toronto Film Festival, but that's probably because they market the character completely different from how he is portrayed.
The cinematography is excellent. I don't know what else to say about it. This is a film that lovingly dotes on the camera and all of the surrounding concepts of it's use to create an artful image, regardless of the subject matter. Every frame fits together so well, acting as the toughest imaginable thread for the canvas that makes up the film. Gyllenhaal, who has taken a step away from mainstream Hollywood films in favor of the more interesting characters provided in the indies, is at the top of his game here. Award ceremonies can kiss my ass, this is just damn fine acting and commitment to the character. Not once do you see Jake. You only see Lou. Riz Ahmed is a wonderful foil as the manipulated "employee" of Louis, providing the voice of reason that often falls on deaf ears. Toss in wonderful supporting performances from Bill Paxton and Rene Russo and you've got one hell of a movie.
Well paced, well written, well acted. It's very hard to find anything wrong with this film. However, I can see how certain couch potato, meat head, beer chugging, action fans probably would call it the worst waste of time of their lives, but these are also the same people that I secretly wish would choke on their beer and chicken wings while watching the next big game, thus ridding the rest of culture of their impudent shrills of discontent in all things seeking to be something other than vapid, baseless, bullshit masquerading as "film." Go watch the damn movie.
