Edgerton, Cruise, Gyllenhaal deliver dark twists and turns
Jake Gyllenhaal channels the young Robert De Niro in his go-for-broke performance in Nightcrawler.
Currently receiving rave reviews for his “Bahston” accent in the Johnny Depp film Black Mass, Blacktown’s own Joel Edgerton wrote, co-produced and starred in the critically acclaimed 2013 crime drama Felony (Tuesday, 11.05pm, Premiere). Under Matthew Saville’s skilled, low-key direction, Edgerton impresses as the police detective who accidentally kills a young cyclist late at night and is conflicted by his impulsive cover-up. Tom Wilkinson and Jai Courtney are fine in support, but the real star is Edgerton’s multilayered script, which focuses on human imperfection and impulse against a genre setting.
Co-produced and directed by Michael Mann, the 2004 thriller Collateral (Saturday, 8:30pm, Thriller) stands not only as a groundbreaking embrace of digital cinema alongside traditional 35mm filmmaking but as the showcase for a rare bad-guy performance by a silver-haired Tom Cruise as well. Jamie Foxx is the working-class Los Angeles taxi driver reluctantly recruited by Cruise’s icy hit man to embark on an all-night killing spree. The combination of Stuart Beattie’s sturdy script and Cruise’s atypically nasty performance resonate.
In 1974, James Toback wrote and directed a moody character piece called The Gambler, which starred James Caan as a university professor with the title addiction. Last year, Mark Wahlberg delivered a credible performance in director Rupert Wyatt’s tonally similar and identically titled The Gambler (Saturday, 8.30pm, Premiere). Screenwriter William Monahan, who won an Oscar for writing Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, pays tribute to Toback’s original by keeping the action intense and low-key.
That same aura is captured to chilling effect by writer-director Dan Gilroy in the contemporary thriller Nightcrawler (Wednesday, 12.35pm, Masterpiece). Jake Gyllenhaal plays an LA low-life who discovers a new career path by driving around at night and videotaping disasters, selling his footage to Rene Russo’s local TV station. Gyllenhaal lost a lot of weight for the role and never seems to blink, summoning the spirit of the early Robert De Niro in his go-for-broke performance.
The great French director Francois Truffaut was never happy with his sixth film and that’s a pity, because there is much to recommend the 1968 revenge drama The Bride Wore Black (Sunday, 5.10pm, World Movies). Jeanne Moreau plays the widow intent on killing the five men who murdered her husband on their wedding day. It was based on a novel written under a pseudonym by Cornell Woolrich and is a tribute to his hero Alfred Hitchcock.
The movie that nearly toppled a studio, the North Korea-set spoof The Interview (Sunday, 8:30pm, Premiere), is worth watching, if only as an example of how silly contemporary scandals have become.
The Bride Wore Black (M) 3.5 stars
Sunday, 5.10pm, World Movies
Nightcrawler (MA15+) 4 stars
Wednesday, 12.35pm, Masterpiece
Felony (M) 3.5 stars
Tuesday, 11.05pm, Premiere
Which empire introduced coffee to Europe?
What fish is used in Worcestershire sauce? Which two film sequels have starred Robert Carlyle? Test yourself.
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