Best movie of 2007 at the earliest. David Fincher's masterpiece of tense mystery suspense drama

Rating: 10/10 (20 March 2007)

Prefacing the review, here is an anecdote of David Fincher's complaint about his experience working on the film set of Alien 3: "There's no one who hated Alien3 more than I did... I got hired for a personal vision and was railroaded into something else. I had never been devalued or lied to or treated so badly. I wasn't used to adults lying to me. I didn't read a script for a year and a half after that. I thought I'd rather die of colon cancer than do another movie." (Excerpt from "The Allure of Decay" by Amy Taubin Sight and Sound, January 1996)
16 years later, David had a similar battle with the studio trying to keep the film running at the uncompromised theatrical cut length he felt would be right. The previous cut ran 3 hours and ten minutes. And the result is the studio's poor treatment of the film "Zodiac" with lackluster marketing (including deceptive trailer that sent the ignorant young people to the movies expecting a blood-splashing slasher horror-thriller, much to their chagrin and disgust) and withdrawn Oscar campaign.
In spite of this, David have finally made a masterpiece that is so unique and completely otherworldly that it's a mind-bendingly absorbing movie-going experience.
I didn't like Fincher's other films, including the nauseatingly disturbing Seven (I can never forget how vitriol my father was in expressing his loathing of the movie and warned me not to see it because he said it made him feel genuinely ill when I was a teenager; I concurred with him although the film had its merits despite black ending) and self-consciously smug & perversely indulgent Fight Club. The Game was meant to be seen only once. Panic Room didn't hold up well -- his weakest film so far, with a trademark lousy ending. Alien 3 is the most fascinating movie in the Alien franchise for its bizarre, unconventional, depressingly pessimistic storytelling and troubled production that is eventually redeemed by the assembly cut edition. Alien 3 theatrical cut opened my eyes to David Fincher as the truly promising new director (despite the studio's butchery in editing room) whose demonstrable proof of his prodigious film-making talent was mind-blowing, to say the least.
This time Mr. Fincher tried his hand at directing a true crime drama and he have proved himself to be an absolutely adept and astonishingly talented filmmaker with the eyes for the mood and creepily disturbing atmosphere in masterful cinematography utilizing drab brown-orange-black color hues to full effect and ears for the music and sound effects that get under the unsuspecting viewers' skin to scare the crap out of them.
I will not say a word about the plot, because the less the viewer know when he/she go in, the better. But it is about facing the true banality of evil from the viewer's perspective which have a strange effect on the viewer that make it a weirdly tense, intoxicatedly gripping and at times frighteningly creepy experience. This is why we go to the movies to experience the riveting drama and emotions, folks.
If the viewer do not expect a flashy movie and can actually appreciate the merits of an intricate murder mystery drama heavy on dialogues as the pivot of suspense & character development (anyone who enjoyed taut suspense thrillers i.e. The Day of the Jackal, All the President's Men and The Insider), all the better. This is not a typical movie that have the camera shots flying all over with rapid cuts and loud music effects. Quite the contrary despite the semi-misleading movie trailer.
The actual movie subliminally request the viewers to pay attention and have some patience -- it's not slow-moving with filler moments, but the very essence of the story politely demand the viewers to surrender their selfish pretension upon start of the movie's beginning and let the vision roll over them in the course of over two hours and a half.
I'm taken aback that given Mr. Fincher's background in music video directing, he's restrained in the pretentiously cool visual effects and power cut flashes that other film directors of similar background (and yes, Tony Scott included) love to throw at the audience. Instead, Fincher let the story unfold itself through mood, dialogue, linear plot and editing, stellar acting by the leads & supports and subtlety of extraordinary cinematography and stunning visual effects.
The story is so dense I had to watch the movie two times within two days to absorb. It was unbelievably (although only a few slow spots that are thankfully brief) riveting for its storytelling power coupled with top-notch production values, which obviously cost high sums of money.
Zodiac is tragically under-appreciated as a commercial flop due to the majority of the audience's disdain out of short-attention-span impatience, dissatisfaction and ignorance. Almost every great film suffer audience lashing (including 2001: A Space Odyssey -- recollect Rock Hudson's grumble as he walks out on the aisle at the premiere screening "Will someone tell me what the hell this is about?!?").
Mark my word, Zodiac will stand the test of time as viewer appreciation grow and it will be seen as a great movie. The same screening where I saw this film twice was nearly empty, with only a middle-aged couple and an unaccompanied elderly lady in her 70's the first time, and elderly couple in their 70's or 80's (they look really old) the second time. All of them liked the film.
I am only a 28 years old man. I felt humbled by their patient & enjoyable presence -- Zodiac the movie receiving the respect through appreciation for the conveyance of top quality film art as entertainment that also rivet & educate.
Major kudos to the visual effects artists for the jaw-dropping shots of the overhead camera shot of a yellow taxi cruising through the streets and the meticulously laid time-lapse construction of Transamerica tower.
**** out of four