Jake Gyllenhaal's LA Crime Story
ACAB: All Criminals Are jacoB gyllenhaal
If you want to catch up, I already did a post about two films in which Jake Gyllenhaal plays an LAPD officer. Today, we visit the other side of the badge. (Is this how badges work?) That is, he's doing the crimes. And also still in Los Angeles.
In one, he is a fun bank heisty criminal who does what I love best (yells into a phone). In the other one he is also definitely a criminal but it is decidedly not fun.
Nightcrawler
Written & Directed by Dan Gilroy
Released October 31, 2014
For a really surprisingly long time I thought the Nightcrawler Jake Gyllenhaal movie was like a superhero thing. Because there's a guy named Nightcrawler, right? I thought it was that.
Oh boy, it is NOT that.
Jake plays a sociopathic grifter/petty criminal with a toxic hustle mindset who ends up forging a path as a stringer who takes videos of car crashes and crime scenes, then sells them to the nightly news (specifically Rene Russo). He gets really good -- too good -- at his job and crosses myriad ethical boundaries up to and including sexual assault via coercion! It's very violent, he's very creepy.
The satirical element -- who gets to draw the lines, if the media is paying him for his footage, aren't they also responsible, etc. etc. is perhaps a bit heavy handed but I can forgive that. It verges on impossible to make a movie that successfully walks that self-aware razor's edge without occasionally stumbling and hitting you over the head with its "message."
I was trying to read a bit about this film because I wanted to make a point that in order to play a deranged, criminal videographer, Jake did not feel compelled to go on 50 ridealongs with deranged criminal videographers (like he did to play a cop). I only found reference to him doing one ridealong with a working stringer, although he didn't seem necessarily sociopathic. In the course of trying to get that info, though, I found multiple interviews and articles that talk about all the weight he lost for the film (30 pounds! He looks weird and creepy for sure!) and how he did it (kale salads! cardio!)
I want to think that the media has gotten more aware of the harm that they do vis a vis obsessing about what actors do to their bodies for roles but now that I think about it, it's definitely not true. Giving equal time to Jake's Southpaw workouts and how Scarlett Johnasson stays in Black Widow shape isn't feminism. (Although, as you might guess, I think Hollywood should be more upfront about how many actors are on steroids. It's a lot).
An actor's work is their body and body is their work, I can kind of understand that. But if, in order to do your job, you have to literally starve yourself, do you think that means maybe it's not the right role for you? Does starving have to be part of your "process"? Would people not have believed a sociopathic videographer that looked more like a movie star and less like, as Jake put it, "a coyote"?
I don't know the answer, it's just something I think about.
Also, I end every review with a Natty or Juiced so it's me, I'm the problem.
RATINGS
Natty or Juiced: hungry
LA Geographic Accuracy: impossible to rate, they only drive when there's no traffic
Gyllenhaalness: 10/10
AmbuLAnce
Written by Chris Fedak
Directed by Michael Bay
Released April 8, 2022
It’s no surprise that I’ve sucked my husband into the Jake Gyllenhaal orbit. The other day he suggested we watch one of those YouTube press videos where Jake does a chronological recounting of some of his iconic roles. My impression of Jake Gyllenhaal:actor is that he genuinely enjoys the process and at times takes it a bit too seriously (even to his own admission). In this video, he waxes poetic about Brokeback Mountain, Donnie Darko, and Zodiac. (Surprisingly he does not talk about even one of his military movies? Which is so weird considering how many there are). He talks about all of this very seriously and actory-ly and then the big reveal at the end is that the video is a plug for Michael Bay’s AmbuLAnce. Which is without a doubt one of the sillier movies Jake has been in.
In the film, Jake's "brother" (like not "official brother" but "guy he grew up with" kind of brother) needs a job, needs money because his sad wife who just had a baby also has cancer. Damn, that's a lot.
So he shows up at his clearly-a-criminal brother's place, looking for a job or some money and gets roped into a bank robbery. Like you do.
Things go awry in a Movie That Watched Heat Too Many Times kind of way, but Jake and his brother manage to escape in an ambulance, staffed by the hottest EMT you've ever seen:
Then, they're in an Ambulance on the run for quite a bit of the rest of the film. (WOW why does Jake love these acting in tiny spaces movies?). There are a lot of convoluted plot elements having to do with how they plan to use their criminal connections to outsmart the cops and the FBI and there's a dog (HE'S FINE!)
All in all, a fun watch.
This film has the honor of featuring the scene that has made me laugh the hardest of any of the Jake films I've watched so far:
(sidenote: just watched it four more writing this, laughed every time. It's maybe a perfect scene.)
(second sidenote: unfortunately the longer version of the scene got taken off YouTube before I could post. The above version is cut down. Still very funny but not as perfect).
I wonder, did he feel the need to do 50 ridealongs with bank robbers to do this role? No? Hm. Imagine that.
RATINGS
Natty or Juiced: 🧃
LA Geographic Accuracy: 7/10
Gyllenhaalness: 9/10 could have more opportunities to be hilarious/on the phone
screaming at 🧃 😂🤣