The one we've been waiting for!

Rating: 9/10 (5 March 2007)

David Fincher has secured his place in the first tier. The maestro drops his recognizable style, save a few remarkable exceptions, and focuses on performance and character. He allows some ugly muddy low light scenes that would send most perfectionists to the medicine cabinet. A little more light would of looked better, yes, but probably not as truthful to the actors and the "vibe" of the scene. The result is a 70's movie that looks and feels like a movie made in the seventies. Many people have tried to get that right and failed. Fincher pulls it off. He had help. The BEST cast in years. The list of developed, memorable characters is at least 20 deep, quite a feat even at two hours and whatever. And then there's the script...so good it makes me wanna puke. Smart, funny, crafted with great payoffs in every scene, at every turn.. except at the end, where closure would of made THIS movie unnecessary anyway. It's not about the poor sick creature that performed those murders, but his victims, all of them. Frightening. I suspect what was frightening for Fincher was turning his big moments over to the actors. As hard as they are to do, choreographed camera moves can be "gotten right". To get some of these scenes right (the interview of Lee at the factory) you need to catch lighting in a bottle. As great as the shot of The Pan Am bldg was, I keep thinking about Rufulo taking the tomatoes off his BLT. Bra-Efren-VO to all involved!