A stale magic trick

Rating: 7/10 (21 May 2014)

Whether or not you are familiar with the history and facts of Zodiac, you watch a movie for some sense of entertainment. Director David Fincher manages to squeeze some out of the mystery and bringing you through the different stages of what happens when an obsession become unfulfilled or mentally and physically harmful. It's shown to be a long process for those either charged with catching, reporting or simply solving a puzzle that no one else can. Living through a similar widespread panic as a set of snipers was on attack in my D.C. suburbia in 2002, I can attest that the trap catches many per news coverage and self preservation, while others are touched directly by the events. You collect every fact that you can to make sense of it all. That is the heart of the film. "The Conversation" holds a similar viewpoint and, I'd imagine, has a similar set of fans among them. The actors bring you into their characters, but nobody shines here, mostly due to the fact that their characters aren't built that way. Ruffalo takes on the task of starting an investigation way after other evidence has been disseminated and never can put it together, plagued by his desired obligation. Our SF Chronicle writer, played by Downey, Jr., makes it about himself as he falls into self absorbed alcoholism, while we follow our cartoonist turned puzzle solver, played by Gyllenhaal, who is as wide opened naive at times as he is smart and obsessed, but it never seems to come together for him. It's a long watch with a lot of attempts to make the time in between "action" entertaining and I'm not all aboard in that perspective. Based on true story movies start their magic trick with their hands tied and may escape the perceived peril, but will the crowd applaud in amazement of entertainment or out of an audiences' duty?