Pretty good if a tad long murder mystery

Rating: 7/10 (10 July 2007)

I came into this movie with an open mind, since I didn't know anything about The Zodiac Killer in advance. After finishing the film the main thought I had: what's the point of having a 2½ h film over this, when there's no conclusion? Of course real events can't be changed thus the ending, but at least 45 minutes of this film could have been cut to save some of the meaningless plot points out. Actually it can be a pretty big bore unless you're really fascinated with the subject, as Fincher obviously was. I'm against the trend of movie starting to be longer and longer, often exceeding the two hour mark. A movie just has to have a lot of meat in it's bones to be that long.
Then the good parts. There was no gratuitous violence, in fact only a few of the dozen or so murders was shown on screen. This is really refreshing with all these ultra violent movies these days. The movie making is solid, when you watch it you get the feeling of a quality movie. It ain't no Fight Club or Seven, as has probably been pointed out many times, but it's a good movie nonetheless. The acting by most people was excellent, especially Gyllenhaal, who I thought actually was the killer! Actually it would have been a much better movie if it was him, but again you can't change reality. The look of 70's was well present.
What bugged me a little was the poor methods the investigators used in solving the case. Not once did I see the envelopes checked for prints (perhaps I missed it), or an attempt to trace the calls, or other similar tricks. Perhaps this is how it really was back then.