A taught thriller, fantastic story and brilliantly crafted by Fincher

Rating: 10/10 (3 August 2007)

After a 5-year hiatus during which he returned to his television roots directing commercials, David Fincher is back and it looks like his past few years of experimentation with digital photography have paid off  with Zodiac, Fincher delivers what is easily his most satisfying work since Fight Club, and what is definitely one of the finest and most unique films of his career.
In Zodiac, Fincher does something that he hasn't yet achieved in any of his other works: he engages himself in the story. And what a fantastic story it is. Viewing this, one has no problem seeing where Fincher and screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker drew from to make Se7en. But the clear and present difference between the two films is that, as sleek, engaging and entertaining as Se7en is, it's nothing more than entertainment. We all know that in the real world a criminal investigation never lasts for such a short period of time as a week. Se7en also engages itself in your usual run-of-the-mill Hollywood storytelling techniques  young rookie detective teams up with old, edge-of-retirement detective for one last case and the whole story ends in a dramatic showdown. Quite on the contrary, Zodiac takes the far more realistic angle. One could even say that it is the quintessential crime investigation film  an epic story spanning over 3 decades and still not meeting a completely final resolution. There is no dramatic peak. The move constantly jumps weeks, months and even years forward in time. The justice system is a slow, bureaucratic process. Not everyone gets to do what he or she wants and how he or she wants to do it. And within all the facts and suspects and leads and investigations, Fincher even has time to find the root and heart of his main characters. He chooses wisely not to indulge in any exposition for the characters  we learn about them, about their lives, their mannerisms and their clockwork as the movie progresses.
The acting is absolutely superb all around. Jake Gyllenhaal, who has already sealed his place as one of the most promising young actors with Brokeback Mountain and Jarhead, delivers a restrained and un-showy performance. The same goes for Mark Ruffalo, Chloe Sevigny and many of the other principal cast members. They all achieve what is most difficult for an actor to achieve: they disappear into their characters, just as Fincher disappears into the film's plot and story. The one real standout, as usual, is Robert Downey, Jr. His role in this film is added to a series of recent film roles of his that just further and further fuel my adoration towards him. He is quick, witty, hilarious and irresistible to watch, while also managing to take these characteristics so easily identifiable with him and applying them to his character. It's no wonder he's one of my favourite actors.
In terms of style, although Fincher directs this with restraint that's not to say that the film completely lacks it. Fincher and cinematographer Harris Savides utilize natural but highly stylized lighting. Fincher's camera still manages to capture beautiful shots, and the use of digital video allows the night sequences to show up better and crisper than they possibly could on film, considering the use of natural lighting and deep focus Fincher employs. But the real achievement in the film is Fincher's restraint; his ability to give the film a stylish and sleek look without ever letting the cinematography to become so showy that it just completely takes over.
In all the film has very high production value on all the technical planes. Fincher utilizes the very best set and costume design work to accurately recreate the time periods, and his perfectionist nature makes sure to see to every last detail. A soundtrack of pop songs is also utilized fantastically to recreate the periods, and in all Fincher's relentless attention to detail pays off well. Of course his direction is greater than ever and perhaps more dominant here than in any of his films  the recreations of the Zodiac murders are ominous and chilling to the bone while Fincher avoids using any cheap tricks.
I have thought about it extensively and I just can't see why this film performed so poorly at the box office. Perhaps it was the bad choice of a release date  in a time slot usually reserved for the studios' shameful failures and holdovers from the previous year's Oscar hopefuls, perhaps the movie going audience wasn't ready for an unprecedented movie such as this one. Taking notes directly from Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men, Fincher manages to create with Zodiac a long and epic film based extensively on exposition, dialogue and phone conversations, featuring a murder case so puzzling it still leaves you asking questions and trying to follow leads after the movie is over, that despite all that remains relentlessly entertaining. A taught thriller, a fantastic story and script and brilliant execution from Fincher, this is the best work he has brought us in a long time, and so far probably the best movie of the first half of the year