Excellent entry into the genre of crime dramas

Rating: 9/10 (4 June 2011)

This is a fantastic movie and I cannot really find anything wrong with it, but in the end it is just a crime drama. The one thing that sets it apart from the rest of the crime dramas is the excellent cast and one of the bleakest ending ever caught on film. Fincher really did do a fantastic job of putting together a well-paced and surprisingly thought provoking movie.
Morgan Freeman is the constant in the movie that never allows the viewer to lose hope that the situation is not hopeless, while keeping the viewer cynical enough to make the city that they live in a land of misguided hopeless souls. Freeman has such brevity that is really just amazing to watch him. Pitt on the other hand does a very respectful job of being the young cop with ambitions of saving the world and has places well across from the jaded Freeman. Spacey of course played his character spot on and when he gives himself on is probably the creepiest thing in the movie because at this point you have no idea what he is up to, but you know that is is in total control of the situation.
I love how Fincher choose to keep the city raining and lit most of the scenes to emphasize the dark. This matched the darkness nature of the film perfectly. The fact that the last scenes was in the bright day light just made it that more shocking. One can tell that a lot of care when into presenting the world to the viewer in a way that matched the themes perfectly.
I think that car ride provided a great forum for us to get to know John Doe even though we only spend a few minutes we seems to know him so well. One can see Mills going down hill and is losing his footing on the moral high ground. It is extremely well played and I love how Summerset comes off as being a match for him. In a way I see Summerset and Doe as being similar, with the main difference of Doe being crazy.
I think this is an extremely well done and smart entry of crime dramas that really flips some of the conventions in a way that can be surprising. The fact that they do not catch the killer, but the killer turns himself in and that fact that the cops lose. They do not save anyone's lives and they fall into the trap that Doe set up for them. I very much enjoyed this film and it was paced and put together in a very effective way.