Nightcrawler (2014)

Imagine a dead serious “Network” written in the darkest pit of humanity, all humor strangled by an utter lack of empathy, with the journalism game run by any dick with a camera. That’s “Nightcrawler.” Jake Gyllenhaal plays Louis Bloom, a petty thief who one night finds his calling: Filming accidents, murders, house fires, and drive-bys, the fresher the gore the better for a top TV news slot. His “employer” is LA’s lowest-rated station, a bottom feeder with the mantra of fear sells. His “boss” is the vampire-hour editor (Renee Russo) who knows her middle age means job death. Bloom speaks in Internet PR babble, product comments, and tweets, using a deflated voice and spouting his love of accounting. He vibes Leo Bloom from “The Producers,” if Bloom had no soul. (Not Joyce Bloom.) Looking starved with bulging eyes, Gyllenhaal is a monster of success as he places civilians and police in harm’s way for a sell. Director/writer Dan Gilroy never judges, he shows us a mirror of journalism endlessly sinking in its race to hit ratings and print money, where cameras are as dangerous as guns. This is the world “Network” warned us about. A-

Prisoners (2013)

Dark dramas about child kidnapping do not make for Hollywood fare. “Prisoners” breaks that mold with its unsettling story one that remains gripping –- for the most part -- to the end, with a cast that digs deep. It centers on a Pennsylvania family (an excellent Hugh Jackman as father and Mario Bello as mother) that believes in God, guns, and “be ready” survivalist skills. Their all-American spirit shatters when their young daughter disappears on Thanksgiving Day, along with the child of an African-American family (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis). Jackman’s father who demands self-control loses himself to rage and takes hostage and savagely tortures a suspect (Paul Dano) cut loose by police for lack of evidence. What would Jesus do? Does it matter? Meanwhile, a detective (Jake Gyllenhaal) searches for the girls, hitting roadblocks and errors: He causes a jailhouse death, a move that shatters not his confidence, but the story’s logic flow. Ugly move: Director Denis Villeneuve marginalizes the mothers as they play to weeping clichés as the men do Manly Things. I fumed. But I also loved many details: The turkey and pie leftovers sitting uncollected for days and the sheer dullness of next-door evil in our America. B

End of Watch (2012)

A heap of movie critics (even Ebert) are throwing praise on “End of Watch” -– a visceral, bloody, gut-punch police drama/thriller than goes against the endless grain of cops as corrupt, greedy, psychotic thugs -- as one of the best films of the year. It could have been. Damn it comes close, often with pitch-perfect dialogue, and harshly with haunting violence. But gimmicks from 1999 abound with shaky-cam overload -- times 10.

Dig it James Ellroy style: Jake Gyllenhaal gives his career-best showing (and he’s been good for years, especially in “Jarhead”) as Brian Taylor, a veteran Marine now working a black-and-white on Los Angeles’ toughest streets, South Central, a land of shit streets, crap homes, and closed businesses plagued by poverty, drugs, guns, and the growing power of Mexican drug cartels that know no border. It’s a near Third World, except the bad guys carry gold-plated AK-47s in some sick “Scarface” fantasy world come true. 

Taylor’s partner is Mike Zavala, a Hispanic-American with a wife and 3.5 children, played by Michael Pena. The men are brothers. Not by blood. But the job. Each will take a bullet or more for one another. No questions asked. The men bullshit banter in the squad car in the best movie back-and-forth since “Pulp Fiction,” but when the hammer drops, they are stone silent and careful, especially when they stumble upon a massive crime spree of human-trafficking and other horrors all right under their noses. They also “fight” the “parents,” that is, the Sarge and all the powers-that-be at work, but playfully. Zavala is the settled one, smart and cautious, Taylor is gung-ho and first out of the car.

The film, written and directed by David Ayer (he wrote Training Day”) drops us in this L.A. Story with no escape, and he shows the ugliest scenes –- ghastly murders, grpahic assaults, endless deaths, and child abuse -– with no let up. The settings never smack of a film set, or some obvious stand-in. I have never been to South Central L.A., but this feels real, down to the litter and alleys and bars on house windows. 

But damn it, where Ayer goes maddeningly wrong is in a ridiculous decade-old plot contrivance that has Taylor touting around digital cameras 24/7 to film his life on the job for an art class. (We never see the guy in class, despite his wanting to earn a law degree.) For all the on-the-street realism Ayers constantly pushes, I call “bullshit” on any relatively intelligent officer anywhere in the world, much less South Central L.A., that would enter potential hot spots and crime scenes carrying a freakin’ camera in one mitt and one-handing his side arm in the other. Especially for a Marine such as Taylor. 

Even what little I know as an ex-crime reporter, when entering an unknown location, searching room by room, any police officer keeps his hands, both hands, on his or her weapon because that weapon will save his or her life. Nothing. Else. Matters. Disagree? Ask a cop. Ask a soldier, for that matter. (If your partner chooses a Sony over a Glock, seriously, trade the hell up.) Call it a movie, sure. I get it, fantasy. But, guess what? The soulless gang members also happen to carry around cameras to share their exploits. For art class, too? YouTube? All this “Blair Witch” shaky-cam crap is mixed in with normal cinema capture, from the sky, floor, whatever, after Taylor’s camera is down. 

I dig and appreciate Ayer’s attempts at showing what policemen and women face each day, the gallows humor they (absolutely true) employ to stay sane, and a refusal to show every cop as worse than the bad guys (I’m look at you “Freelancers” and “Safe” and 1,005 other films), but he should have stuffed the gimmicks and played the film straight. This seriously could have been well atop my Top 10 List of the year. But for the gimmicks.

 God bless Pena. A consistently great actor in “Crash” and “The Lincoln Lawyer” and a few dozen other films, he gives an amazingly tough, smart, funny, and humane performance here. His officer is a full human being, jumping off the page. Watch his horrified silent reaction as he comes across a squalid dungeon full of Mexicans held as drug-runner slaves, and, damn, the man deserves an Oscar nomination. And leading man status on par with Gyllenhaal and any other actor out there. B

Source Code (2011)

Duncan Jones’ “Source Code” is a wild take on “Strangers on a Train” – except two men don’t meet and conspire, one guy goes inside another’s mind – literally -- to stop a massive Armageddon massacre on a commuter train in Chicago. Jake Gyllenhaal is the soldier who keeps finding himself, “Groundhog Day” style, placed inside the noggin of a school teacher who is now deceased, a victim of a train explosion. The dire mission given to Gyllenhaal’s soldier: Stop the bomber. His handlers are Jeffrey Wright, all wiggly, whacky mad scientist, and Vera Farmiga, all stiff as a month-old pretzel. Will Jake stop the killer? Will he fall in love with the young woman (Michelle Monahan) in the next seat? For 75 minutes of this sci-fi time-travel twister, I was stoked to find out. I loved Jones’ instant-cult-classic “Moon,” and this flick also follows a loner hero. But then just at the climax, the film doesn’t just go off the rails, it commits suicide in a jaw-dropper immolation of Hollywood hokum and nonsense. As the end credits rolled, I sat stunned wondering if Jones really intended to dis teachers so, and if he is a one-hit wonder. A huge let down. C+

Prince of Perisa: The Sands of Time (2010)

One can’t even watch a silly video-game inspired CGI-infested summer flick without a dose of political commentary. “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” concerns a world superpower attacking a smaller Middle Eastern country because it harbors weapons of mass destruction. But there are no WMDs. The rich nation is after oil. Oops. I meant a mystical dagger that can reverse time. The Prince is a buff white guy played by Jake Gyllenhaal, the adopted son of the Persian king who is assassinated during a war celebration. Our wrongly accused prince must: 1) Prove that Ben Kingsley is not Gandhi, but a rat bastard up to no good, and 2) The feisty princess (Gemma Arterton) of the besieged nation is destined to be his baby mama. We get battles, action, romance, comedy and an awful plot that provides unintended giggles. It’d all be good dumb fun, except Gyllenhaal (“Brokeback Mountain”) is a dull hero. I mean nap time boring, and he’s no action-god Stallone. Alfred Molina as a Han Solo-meets-Jabba crook saves the day. If only he were the hero. C+

Zodiac (2007)

During the audio commentary of “Zodiac,” James Ellroy declares this stellar David Fincher film “one of the greatest American crime films ever made.” True. It’s also one of the best films about American journalism and obsession, he kind that cracks one’s life like broken crystal. During the 1970s in San Francisco, the self-named Zodiac killed at random, rambled in cryptic letters to the “Chronicle,” ruled radio and TV, disappeared for years. He owned the information, and therefore the city, and one shudders at what he could have done with the Internet. Among the lives he ruined: The detectives (Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards) and newspapermen (Robert Downey Jr. and Jake Gyllenhaal) who picked up the pieces and stored the evidence. Fincher and writer James Vanderbilt give us a suspect (John Carroll Lynch of “Fargo”) who presents a veiled sense of evil, but manages to stay outside the spotlight. “Zodiac” is wildly accurate, from the newsroom cigarette smoke to the endless interviews and dead-ends that keep detectives busy. Fincher’s masterpiece. A

Donnie Darko (2001)

I finally caught up with “Donnie Darko,” a cult-hit film that vibes and jolts like a David Lynch film made for the teen set. It’s an un-even film, prone to heavy-handed symbolism (a fired liberal teacher leaves her Catholic school employer, American flag in arms, and stumbles and nearly falls), but “Darko” has more on it’s mind than just booze, sex and rock n’ roll. And it has Katharine Ross, famous star of “The Graduate” and “Stepford Wives,” plus “Butch Cassidy.” Jake Gyllenhaal is Donnie, a troubled teen (he previously destroyed an empty home) smashing against parental authority, seeing a psychiatrist (Ross) as well as a man-sized bunny in a metal mask. Bunny says the world will end, soon. Director/writer Richard Kelly sets a lot of plates spinning, most successfully the one where the “crazy” teen may be the most sane, honest, person in the room. A brilliant take on real teens. Still, I got the feeling there was a good deal of footage and story on the cutting room floor. B