Nightcrawler (2014)

Featuring Jake Gyllenhall's best performance to date, Nightcrawler is a thrilling and thought-provoking critique of society's desensitisation and thirst for gore. Gyllenhall plays one of the creepiest characters ever - a cold-hearted little sociopath named Louis Bloom - a petty thief turned amateur cameraman..

Bloom witnesses a car accident one evening and sees some amateur cameramen capturing footage of the wreckage, Bloom thinks he can do better, and he stops at nothing to achieve that. He starts capturing his own footage and taking to a local new centre where he sells it. Which is when he meets TV news supervisor Nini Romina (Rene Russo) and develops a controlling relationship with her. Bloom will stop at nothing to capture the most disturbing and goriest footage possible and doesn't mind breaking the law in the process.

The scene where Bloom and Nini have dinner together is probably the finest portrayal of a true sociopath. The way Bloom gains leverage and eventual control over his boss is a thing of beauty -- he even attempts to blackmail her into sleeping with him. The controlling relationships and the way he treats people makes Hannibal Lector seem like a empathic, warm-hearted little soul. His black, dead eyes are really creepy, and at no point does he show the least bit of remorse for the mayhem he causes.

I was on the edge of my seat during the Diner scene and subsequent car chase, and also amazed at the lows that Bloom will stoop to to get the story he needs. Nightcrawler is more than just another story about a sociopath. It's a scathing commentary on a corrupt media where ratings override the basic principles of ethics and morals. "If it bleeds it leads" as the slogan says.

Non-Stop (2014)

Flightplan ...I mean Non-Stop, is a fast-paced airline safety propaganda video disguised as a Liam Neeson thriller. Neeson plays an air marshall, who years early lost his daughter to cancer, so became a burnout alcoholic (just the kind of guy you'd want as an air Marshall).

The film starts with him necking some whiskey while sat in his car in front of the airport before proceeding the departure lounge - he is to be overseeing the security of a long-haul London to New York flight. After fifteen minutes of Liam Neeson grunting, and shuffling around the plane looking like a corpse, he eventually receives a troubling text message on his phone. The message is from and unknown source and says that they will kill one of the passengers if Neeson doesn't wire an inordinate amount of money into an offshore bank account. The fact that the would-be criminals would send such a demand to an Air Marshall is completely diabolical.

After a series of mysterious deaths on board the plane, Neeson becomes paranoid and soon begins to loose it. He starts searching passengers for the mobile phone that he has been received the messages from. It seems his only friend on board is Julianne Moore, who was sitting next to him when boarded the plane, though he suspects her at one point. The most unrealistic element of the film is how the passengers put up with Neeson's antics for so long. A crazed looking man running around a plane with a gun searching passengers without giving them any explanation.

The film will have you guessing who the culprits of the extortion/hijack are, and have you suspecting everyone. However, the section of the film where Neeson is searching for the phone is a bit silly, he stands in the middle of cabin looking at everyone to see if they 'look' like they're using a mobile.. Any criminal with half a brain isn't going to send a message while he's stood there.... He even has Julianne Moore and a stewardess highlight suspect passengers with maker pens on a security monitor! Plus, conveniently, Neeson meets a mobile phone programmer on the plane, and they come up with a plan to set up the suspect by send a photo message to his phone causing it ring.

Eventually, everything comes to a head, resulting in some tense stand-off scenes and a truly ridiculous scene involving a floating gun. Neeson and Moore's performances were ok, the rest of the cast were all unknowns and TV actors. Not a bad little thriller, lost it's way in parts, but finished well enough - a genuine three star, late night, drunken Netflix affair.