Posts tagged Marco Rodriguez

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

NIGHTCRAWLER is a fascinating and dark movie that affects you the way passing an accident on the highway does: You want to look at it, but you feel a little bit guilty in doing so.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Louis Bloom, a petty thief who does come across an automobile accident in Los Angeles, and the experience changes his life so much that he becomes a different man because of it.

It is the middle of the night, Lou stops his car to observe what is happening at the scene, he watches a videographer record footage for morning news programs, and when he sees the footage on television, Lou decides that he can do that, and so he buys himself a camcorder and a police scanner and sets out to become a freelance videographer specializing in accidents and crime scenes that happen in the middle of the night.

Lou makes his first sale for $250, and when the news director tells him he has a good eye, Lou says, “I’m a very, very quick learner; you’ll be seeing me again.”

A carjacking crime wave going on in the city causes business to be so good for Lou that he hires a young homeless man for $30 a night to be his assistant.

Rick’s job is to ride shotgun, watch the traffic, give directions, and handle a second camera for different angles at the scenes.

Well, one night Lou and Rick come onto a crime scene that will change their lives.

It involves shootings during a home invasion, and because Lou and Rick arrive on the scene before the police do, they see the shooters leave the house, and Lou even records them.

Then Lou goes inside the house to get exclusive footage of the victims while Rick stays outside and stands watch.

Lou has no compunction against moving evidence inside the house for better camera angles before the police arrive and gets away with it.

For now.

Lou establishes a business relationship with the news director of one of the TV stations, who is Nina, played by Rene Russo, but he would like their relationship to be more than just business.

Rick wants more money, the police question Lou, and then all hell breaks loose.

NIGHTCRAWLER is fascinating to watch, very good, but very very very very creepy.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”