Nightcrawler is a deeply conventional film with an unconventional main character. Nightcrawler is conventional because it is essentially the story of the American dream: a man comes from humble roots, but because of hard work, he is able to become a successful entrepreneur. Unfortunately that man has no moral compass and is a deeply exploitive and dangerous human being. Nightcrawler employs movie logic-this man is clearly bonkers, but for the film to work, enough people have to either not see that or empathize with the way that he replaces his lack of opportunity with web training and BS corporate speak. Nightcrawler focuses on his work routine, but rarely at what he does in his off-hours, which on one hand, is fair because he is obsessed with his work, but on the other hand, is not because I was genuinely curious at the characters’ allusions to how warped his personal life looked. If Nightcrawler didn’t star the perfect Jake Gyllenhaal, I probably would not have enjoyed the movie at all, but I love him so I imagined that Nightcrawler was the parallel universe to Prisoners, i.e. what the cop would have become if he didn’t make the right decisions! Nightcrawler felt meandering-it had a well-developed character, but wasn’t entirely sure what to do with him. Nightcrawler is only a must see if you love Jake, otherwise you may find this character study a bit tedious if you don’t find broadcast journalism inherently interesting.