Reel Critics: News bleeds, leads in ‘Nightcrawler’

Nightcrawler, Jake Gyllenhall, Rene Russo, Before I Go to Sleep, Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Memento, Mark Strong, Gone Girl, Force Majeure, Alps, Johannes Bah Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli

Local TV news gone wild is the voyeuristic theme behind “Nightcrawler.” It focuses on late-night paparazzi who stalk the streets of Los Angeles. They cover nasty stories breaking on the vampire shift when legitimate news teams are home asleep.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays an amoral opportunist looking to make a dollar any way he can. One night, he stumbles on a carjacking and a dying victim lying in the roadway. He records the bloody scene and sells the video to a local TV station. This first success sends him on a hunt for sudden human tragedy.

Listening to his police scanner, he races around L.A. to get lurid videos he can sell. He lies, cheats and steals his way into situations that will get him the top story of the day. Rene Russo, in her best role since “Get Shorty,” plays the news chief who drives him to take ever-increasing risks.

The unusual scenarios he encounters take the story into satirical territory. Some far-fetched incidents depicted are certainly not true-life events. But they clearly represent the all-too-real motto of TV news: “If it bleeds, it leads.”

—John Depko

*

‘Go to Sleep’? You got it

The wannabe-thriller “Before I Go to Sleep” features Nicole Kidman waking up each morning convinced she’s still in her 20s and shocked when she looks in the mirror. Hello, welcome to my life!

In bed next to her is Colin Firth. He patiently explains he’s her husband of 14 years, she got amnesia after a bad accident, and whatever happens today will be forgotten tomorrow.

The memory-impaired mystery was done so much better in “Memento.” Every day, this woman tries to piece her life together thanks to photos, a video diary and a sinister-looking doctor (Mark Strong) who claims he’s trying to help her.

This is no “Gone Girl” by any stretch, and I had the whole plot pretty much figured out from the get-go. Not even the talents of its big stars can make “Before I Fall Asleep” — oops, that’s “Before I Go to Sleep” — worth the price of admission.

*

An irresistible ‘Force’

The superior “Force Majeure” opens with a picture-perfect Swedish family on a ski vacation in the Alps. As they’re lunching on a terrace, a controlled avalanche rolls down and thunders toward them. The husband, Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke), grabs his phone and runs away even as his little boy screams for him.

Moments later the danger is over and all are safe. Tomas’ wife Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) tries to comfort their two kids. Tomas returns and calmly resumes eating his lunch.

Ebba is shocked and numb, the children are scared and angry, and Dad seems totally clueless. When Ebba confronts him later, he dismisses her “version” of the incident. Why is Tomas so cavalier about his actions. Is this an indication of a marriage in trouble?

I like the use of family routine to reflect the changes in relationship dynamics, where the act of brushing one’s teeth can harbor contentment, lust or hostility.

Friends of Tomas and Ebba are shown the incident as recorded on Tomas’ phone. This triggers a battle of the sexes as the men feel compelled to defend their masculinity and the women resort to passive-aggressive behavior to show displeasure. No one is happy.

The ending of “Force Majeure” is open to interpretation given another perilous situation: Have the tables now been turned? This is a film that you will want to think about and discuss long after. It’s one of the year’s best.

—Susanne Perez

JOHN DEPKO is a retired senior investigator for the Orange County public defender’s office. He lives in Costa Mesa and works as a licensed private investigator. SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant for a company in Irvine.