Jake Gyllenhaal is one of the most consistently great actors working today, yet is also underrated. This was never made clearer than when he was ridiculously not nominated for his brilliantly dark performance in ’Nightcrawler’. He is an actor whose choice in films remains excellent, with the possible exception of video-game adaptation ’Prince of Persia’, and in the last year alone he released two films ("Nightcrawler’ and "Enemy’) that are edgier and more interesting than most of the movies I’ve seen for a long while. Here are my top 5 favourite Gyllenhaal films:
1. Nightcrawler
Gyllenhaal stars as Lou Bloom, gaunt sociopath who makes a living as a stringer, driving a fast car armed with a camcorder and police radio, to road accidents and crime scenes. He then films them and sells the footage to a sensationalist news channel. Gyllenhaal gives the most uncomfortably creepy performance since Robert De Niro in ’The King of Comedy’, a nocturnal creature with ruthless ambition. It’ll be hard to see him in the same way again.
2. Zodiac
Only talented film-makers like David Fincher can make an investigative-thriller film that lasts three hours and never loses momentum. This is a true-crime film, set in the 70s, about the search for the Zodiac’s identity, and remains exciting no matter how many times you watch it. Gyllenhaal holds the labyrinthine story together as the protagonist, Robert Graysmith. He’s wonderful as a squeaky clean cartoonist living in a hard-boiled world, who slowly falls prey to obsession. Perhaps Fincher’s best film.
3. Enemy
There are many great actors who have relished the chance to play doppelgängers before: Jeremy Irons in "Dead Ringers’ and Nicolas Cage in "Adaptation’, for example. While those are both great performances, they both make the doubles near opposites of each other, to make them distinguishable. Gyllenhaal’s a natural enough actor to make them convincingly individual, without them being caricatures of personality types. The film itself, about a man who sees his double in a DVD, is dark, gripping and filled with enough weirdness to fuel a month’s worth’s of nightmares.
4. Donnie Darko
The film that made Gyllenhaal a star, and gave us one of the most iconic characters of the 2000s (two if you include freaky rabbit Frank). This is a true cult classic about a teenager whose troubles with bullies and girls are mixed together with black holes and time travel. It is also an astoundingly confident directorial debut from Richard Kelly, only 26 at the time, which makes his god-awful follow up "Southland Tales’ all the more disappointing.
5. Source Code
Gyllenhaal stars as Colter Stevens, a man who is sent back in time as a passenger of a train that exploded because of a hidden bomb, and must find and alter history, reliving the train ride every time he dies. Essentially it’s "Speed’ meets "Groundhog Day’, which could have been a boring case of deja-vu, yet, thanks to Gyllenhaal’s charisma and the work of screenwriter Ben Ripley and director Duncan Jones, this is a fun, edge-of-your-seat action film. This is Jones’ second film after "Moon’, the best astronaut film ever (sorry, 2001), and "Source Code’ proves that film was no fluke, and makes him, in my mind, as one of the most exciting up and coming directors. It also shows that Gyllenhaal can do the classic leading man with the best of ’em.