Mysterious and intriguing, but misguided and drawn out at times.

Rating: 7/10 (16 January 2016)

Zodiac is a 2007 thriller/drama film directed by David Fincher, which brings the true story of the Zodiac Killer to the big screen, who killed between 5+ people in and around the Bay Area during the late 1960's and early 1970's. Zodiac stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Paul Graysmith, a cartoonist who becomes obsessed with solving the case, Robert Downey Jr. as Paul Avery, a journalist and Mark Ruffalo as Dave Toschi, a detective in charge of the case. Zodiac's premise and grisly portrayal of the murders are certainly where it shines, along with the terrific acting of its cast and intriguing, mysterious atmosphere which leads us guessing and wondering at every turn. Zodiac pulls us into the film as an audience and like Gyllenhaal we often at times feel obsessed with the case and demand answers. However, the film does seem to over do its welcome especially with the run time at 2hours and 37minutes, towards the second half of the film and into the third act, the lack of action scenes can make it feel tiresome, despite Gyllenhaal's and Ruffalo's astounding performances barely holding it together. Some scenes feels unnecessary and drawn out. The film does whoever tremendously capture the barbarity, atmosphere and attention-craving nature of the unidentified Zodiac Killer, although not shining enough focus on him. Zodiac also seems to miss out portrayals of one or two murders which were possibly linked to the killer, this certainly would have helped boost the action in the latter part of the film. Overall, Zodiac captures the realism and ambiguity of the murders and keeps us questioning who and why in almost every scene, the development of the case just about keeps our attention and keeps us around for the conclusion, but at an expense of action sequences and more focus on the killer himself, despite A class acting from Gyllenhaal, Downey Jr. and Ruffalo. 7/10