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</script></div>{/googleAds}Everything about Zodiac is long and exhaustive. The production notes run well over 75 pages, the briefest of plot synopses are no fewer than a couple hundred words, the actual murder investigation spanned decades, the film itself is a butt-numbing two hours forty-five minutes, and I'm even wondering how I'm going to keep this analysis to fewer than 700 words so that visitors might have the endurance to read it.

Not that long movies are necessarily bad Zodiac is certainly not but don't expect a three-hour action adventure like King Kong or Lord of the Rings, or a briskly-paced thriller like Se7en or Panic Room. Zodiac is a dialogue-driven police procedural with intricately woven timelines and tedious details quite atypical of the genre films we've come to know from David Fincher... but mesmerizing and chilling all the same. You'll need to invest a lot of time and hard work in watching the film, but there's a rewarding payoff if you manage to endure.

For those who don't know, the film comes from the best-selling Robert Graysmith novel of the same name that recounted the investigation into one of the nation's most poisonous serial killers the self-proclaimed Zodiac killer - that terrorized the San Francisco area of California in the late 60s and early 70s. Though the case was never solved - and to this day remains in the police department cold case files - the Zodiac killer continued to claim victims long after his killing spree had, for all intents and purposes, come to an end. Numerous newspaper reporters, local yokels, and police detectives became so obsessed with unmasking the killer, they found themselves the victims of crumbling marriages, drug and alcohol addiction and declining health. This is where Fincher finds his groove. We truly sense the overwhelming despair and obsession as these men sink deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole, their life force drained by the pursuit of something we know is unattainable.

Beginning in the summer of 1969, following the murder of a pair of teenaged lovebirds, the killer occasionally taunts police by mailing anonymous letters, ciphers and codes to The San Francisco Chronicle as well as to the city's other major newspapers, that contain clues as to his real identity. After a newspaper reader eventually cracks the first code, The Chronicle's shy editorial cartoonist-turned-gumshoe, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) personally involves himself in the case because of his interest in puzzles and games. Graysmith strikes up a friendship with the paper's crime beat reporter, Paul Avery (Robert Downey, Jr.), who is tasked to cover the killings after one of the letters was addressed to him personally.

The film's gait is choppy and uneven at times, occasionally sputtering to a standstill until a new lead comes in, but it's Downey, Jr that breathes life into the proceedings with his Avery. He's brash and brazen as the rebel reporter with such a mighty cause. Watching Avery disintegrate into a puddle of drugged-up, drunken mush is like an Acting School 101 lesson in character portrayal. I'm not certain the appropriate amount of depth was written into his character however, as there seem to be a few loose ends in his self-destruction. Perhaps Fincher did cut something out after all.

On the police side of the manhunt, the Zodiac case is investigated by San Francisco's chief homicide detective Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and his partner, William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards), who struggle with the case, hampered by the jurisdictional challenges experienced between the local police departments involved in the investigation. James Vanderbilt's script bounces back and forth between Toschi's lengthy investigation and that led by Avery and Graysmith. But it's Graysmith who winds up with the reins as his cohorts eventually drop from the investigation, whipped by false leads, and beaten down by the passage of time with nary a speck of resolution to fuel the fire of perseverance. Gyllenhaal makes his Graysmith simple yet loveable. He's appropriately understated for the shy, goofball artist, but as the murder case drones on, and the principal investigators eventually lose interest and move on, Gyllenhaal steps forward, like a shiny new soldier in the war on Zodiac, bringing Graysmith out of the shadows and into the front lines of the investigation.

One of only a few things that isn't excessive about this methodical thriller is Fincher himself. Lacking are many of the clever camera tricks and fascinating scene transitions characteristic of the underappreciated director of Se7en and Fight Club. Other than the film's muted 70s look and feel - ironically enhanced by the use of digital equipment and a captivating fast-forward time-lapse of the construction of San Francisco's signature Transamerica building, the film is missing a much-needed verve. It would have been nice to have seen at least a small bit of Fincher "whiz-bang" to spice up the film's sometimes sluggish pacing and it's nearly crippling runtime. We need a few more peaks to go along with the bottomless valleys.

I guess it's fitting that I failed to keep my analysis of Zodiac to fewer than 700 words, as was my goal. But nearly everything else about the film is long and excessive, so why can't I be.


DVD

DVD Details:

Screen formats: Widescreen Anamorphic 2.35:1

Subtitles: English

Language and Sound: English: Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1; French: Dolby Digital 5.1

Other Features: Color; interactive menus; scene access.

* Previews - for upcoming releases

No extra features on the disc other than a couple of previews. The movie is so long there probably wasn't enough disc space for many features. Most assuredly there will be a 2-disc double dip in the foreseeable future. But in the meantime, this is a poor DVD realease of a so-so movie.

Number of discs: - 1- Keepcase Packaging

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