NIGHTCRAWLER (Dan Gilroy, 2014) While contempt doesn't begin to describe my reaction to what masquerades as dramatic social commentary these days, there is just so much dingy misanthropic gold in Nightcrawler that all notions of voyeurism are subverted. Jake Gyllenhaal and his tadpole stare are Lou, the low-ball sociopath who takes up chasing lurid footage on spec for local LA news stations (if it bleeds, it leads etc), accompanied by Rick, his hapless apprentice. As his professional stock rises Lou butts heads with veteran rival Bill Paxton and courts Rene Russo's Nina, sleazy editor and principle client, until his drive to capture footage shifts from the reactive to the creative.
That none of what devolves feels particularly outlandish is a pretty effective indictment of our prevailing reality and while Nightcrawler is a critique, Gilroy is canny enough to impose hypnotic choreography on all that yucky verité, keeping everything tightly kinetic and smoothly lineal in the process of crafting reportage into fable. The nocturnal vehicular footage rewards both the action gourmand and the technical/aesthetic connoisseur and we appreciated the contrast drawn between the drab banality of violence and its conflation into monetised spectacle. In fact, we appreciated most of what Nightcrawler was shovelling.
That none of what devolves feels particularly outlandish is a pretty effective indictment of our prevailing reality and while Nightcrawler is a critique, Gilroy is canny enough to impose hypnotic choreography on all that yucky verité, keeping everything tightly kinetic and smoothly lineal in the process of crafting reportage into fable. The nocturnal vehicular footage rewards both the action gourmand and the technical/aesthetic connoisseur and we appreciated the contrast drawn between the drab banality of violence and its conflation into monetised spectacle. In fact, we appreciated most of what Nightcrawler was shovelling.
I have time for Gyllenhaal because he (more often than not) rewards indulgence with the kind of off-kilter shit that he pulls here, although in absolutely nailing a supporting turn that could have gone so very wrong, Riz Ahmed almost jacks his thespy thunder. Paxton brings a lot of... standard Paxton, and I can't decide how I feel about Russo's numbed Nina; she did good without knocking me out of my shoes, and that was all that was really required. Brief moments of uneven tonality are the thing's only real defect, the ultimate scene striking us as a bit of glib disappointment after the stunningly angular catharsis that precedes it. But don’t let this deter you; if Nightcrawler leaves you feeling like you’ve been licking tar, it has a point, and you won’t be able to drag your eyeballs off it.
DIRTY WARS (Richard Rowleycor, 2013) Despite its generic title and relative lack of fanfare, Dirty Wars sets itself apart in a genre obsessed with embedded access by mining the sinister lack of scrutiny enjoyed by one of the American military's most reprehensible tentacles, JSOC, or Joint Special Operations Command. If that sounds like an acronym you couldn't satirise, the reality as explored by veteran war journalist Jeremy Scahill will wipe that cynic's smirk right off your face. From Afghanistan to Yemen and Somalia, Scahill's poignant attempts to penetrate JSOC's truly terrifying political and operational impunity and to make sense of the horrific scale and limitless scope of their arbitrary carnage comprises a profoundly moving and disturbing experience. Beautifully filmed under terrible conditions, thoughtfully constructed and deeply personal, Dirty Wars benefits greatly from its human pulse, dismantling distance and objectification to unite us with those at the opposite end of a process that victimises us all. Mandatory viewing.
THE IMITATION GAME (Morten Tyldum, 2014) For a biopic, The Imitation Game sure as hell knew how to ballroom dance around a subject without ever making meaningful contact. Most literate adults are already aware of the whole Alan Turing / Enigma encryption / gay and persecuted / Bletchley Park milieu blah blah etc. etc., and if you number amongst them, don't expect to be goosed with any stunning insights or novel interpretations. Or moistened by gobsmacking performances; for once, the paucity of heavyweight gongs afforded TIG (despite the relentless campaigning) hinted at method behind the fillum establishment's madness, and it's my opinion that the adapted screenplay Oscar was massively undeserved. In trying to scrutinise such highly unconventional personalities and their accomplishments through plain vanilla goggles, this movie squandered such an amazing critical mass of historic material that I'm as much saddened as annoyed.
It's just too low-functioning. And never grows legs, staggering all over the place breaking shit in the attempt, welding a mass of laughably stock characters, clichéd assumptions about gender and sexuality and a dirty-windscreen view of history into something lumpen, pointlessly fractured and even sort of amorphously offensive. From the drippy private school scenes of romantic awakening to Alan's streaking away from his problems across a field of dewy Englishness, The Imitation Game just felt like a gently wafted, scone-scented Cumbercentric fart, with a side of Kiera Knightley as Kiera Knightley: privileged vintage crumpet. You might have guessed by now that I'm not down with either Knightley or Benedict's shtick, but I like to think of that prejudice as something deeply rooted in their respective creative realities. That the latter was medium-competent in 12 Years a Slave just underlines the embarrassing distance between Tyldum and Steve McQueen. Thumbs down.
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