Career opportunity

Nightcrawler

Crit

Ah, the latest entry in the fast-growing subgenre of Creepy Jake. Here Jake is Louis Bloom, petty thief, inspired to a career change when he happens onto a wreck on the highway being filmed by freelancers.

If you just glanced at a synopsis of this film, you might think that it works the ambiguous border between news coverage and news exploitation (or news management, or news manufacturing), but no, there's no ambiguity here, or any journalistic ethics either. Louis is all ambition and self-help platitudes, unencumbered by even the most rudimentary moral sense. Which renders this a competent entertainment that provides nothing to engage with. For maximum enjoyment, your brain should be as disengaged as Louis's heart and soul.

Trailer

• Rosewater--Oppression of journalists, Iran division, written and directed by Jon Stewart.