As noir as a bullet from a lover, this black-hearted film about the underground of amateur video camera journalists who chase death in the Los Angeles streets and sell their footage to local TV news for blood money is one of the year’s best cinematic vacuums of hopelessness. Jake Gyllenhaal is an A-1 creep here. Any drop of romantic lead or action hero charisma he may have is drained out and gone for this role as a proud parasite of others’ tragedies. He rarely blinks his big, awkward eyes and there’s nothing but a cold void behind them. He’s like a rat chewing through garbage. No self-doubt, no distraction (he doesn’t do drugs and has minimal interest in sex), no discernible fear, he’s all about the score and the accompanying ego trip. He wants the closest views of the gory accident, the murder scene and the mangled survivor as they’re wheeled into the ambulance. He throws himself into it like a man who’s found his calling and never had a soul to lose. It’s a performance from a star who’s putting in the work and taking the risks to be a great actor behind the famous name. Along the way, we also get commentary on how news media makes its own desperate grabs for the score. It will throw aside the real story for the sensational one. Drama usurps truth always. Media benefits from a killing even more than the killer does. The viewers are guilty, too, because they always give them what they want, which is to simply stop and watch the circus. It’s a beautifully made film with stunning nocturnal urban views, but not a pretty picture of humanity. That’s noir for you, though. It’s never nice, nor should it be. The only rays of light here are the late night city street lamps.