“Nightcrawler” may have been Jake Gyllenhaal’s best role to date. The fact that you leave the theater with a lingering feeling that he is following you home, I think is evidence director Dan Gilroy did exactly what he was hoping to do.

In an interview with indiewire.com, Gilroy stated that Gyllenhaal lost 25-30 pounds for this role. “It was very much Jake’s idea and implementation to lose the 25-30 pounds he lost in the film and the genesis of that was that he had this symbolic totem animal of a coyote and a coyote is, as we all know, they’re perpetually hungry and lean,” Gilroy said.

The idea of Gyllenhaal as a coyote is so real. Throughout the film he is scavenging for “blood” like a hungry coyote in the desert.

Louis “Lou” Bloom (Gyllenhaal) is a young “street rat,” that in the opening scene is stealing some chain-link fence. He inevitably gets caught by a security guard, and then jumps the security guard for his watch.

But within the first 15 minutes of the movie, Bloom runs into an accident videographer while driving home that propels the whole story. It is just one line that changes Lou’s entire character.

You may hear this in a journalism class, and it honestly could’ve been the tagline of this film: If it bleeds it leads.

Lou, inspired ultimately by the money but also the intensity of the job, enlists another street urchin named Rick, played by Riz Ahmed, to drive around the greater Los Angeles area looking for wrecks, robberies, murders etc.

Aside from the actual brutal accidents he filmed, what was really disturbing was the lack of emotion.

Lou is a class-A sociopath: he shows neither empathy nor sympathy for anyone throughout the movie. He is an extortionist, misogynist, and he obviously has other under lying emotional problems.

He is also willing to stoop to blackmail and possibly even murder to get the lead clip.

Gyllenhaal’s acting was the best part of the film. He made it so you would never want to meet him in person.

He was so real and that was the scariest part of the movie.

While the movie might not end up being more than simple entertainment, the story was exciting and the acting was top notch.

“Nightcrawler” is sure to be a crowd pleaser and Gyllenhaal’s role has the potential for some rewards this upcoming award season.