Fincher back in the fold

Plenty of films have been made about the Zodiac Killer, perhaps the most notorious unsolved murder case in American history. Of the ones I have seen, I could list plenty of reasons why they weren't that good, ranging from boring to lacking a cohesive narrative to being downright garbage. Yet, thanks to director David Fincher, finally emerging from his five-year absence post-"Panic Room," I can finally forget all the poor excuses for a Zodiac movie, as the man has crafted a masterpiece. \nUsing Robert Graysmith's excellent book on the case, Fincher's "Zodiac" spans 20 years through the eyes of Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), detective David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and police beat reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), examining how these gruesome murders would consume their lives. The young Graysmith is working at the San Francisco Chronicle when the Zodiac's first cryptic letter and cipher arrive in the editor in chief's hands, and he becomes obsessed with cracking the killer's codes in an attempt to prove he is more than the daily newspaper's cartoonist. His obsession would span decades, following lead after lead without hope, and ultimately his novel was birthed from these events, all in the midst of ruined lives and dead bodies littered about the Bay Area thanks to a killer who was never caught. \nFincher's film is absolutely brilliant. With a hefty running time of 158 minutes, Fincher takes Graysmith's novel and adds in his own paranoia of having been raised in Marin County, Calif., during the Zodiac's killing spree. The end product is a film similar to Spike Lee's "Summer of Sam," that being an examination of a city in which no one is truly safe when a killer is on the loose and is making such horrifying threats as "school children make good targets." With every step closer to solving the case, in reality, these men are taking two steps back, and Fincher captures their frustration and despair in every frame. What he also captures are murders so unnerving and so unsettling that they remain etched in your mind long after you've left the theater.\nPraise is to be showered upon Gyllenhaal, Downey Jr. and Ruffalo, all turning in excellent performances by getting wrapped up not only in their characters' minds but in the actual case itself. I must slight Fincher only a little for the fact that while everyone shows the wear and tear of 20 years aging, Gyllenhaal still looks as young as he did when the film started, except by the end he's managed to grow a five-day-old beard. Regardless, these are deep performances with strong supporting bits given to the likes of Brian Cox, Phillip Baker Hall and Anthony Edwards. And John Carroll Lynch, who plays major suspect Arthur Leigh Allen, is downright disturbing. \nIn the last five years, Fincher has turned down countless film projects that include "Mission: Impossible III," "Batman Begins" and even last year's unsolved murder thriller, "The Black Dahlia." What emerged in the end was "Zodiac," one of Fincher's strongest works, second only to "Fight Club," and it sure as hell was worth the wait.