I couldn't remember all through the film who this actor was, and when I whispered to my son "who is that guy, it's really annoying me" he said "it's the one from the beginning of the film seven hours ago" ...Yeah it's a long and very detailed film of the investigation of the so called Zodiac Killer who murdered five known victims during the 1960s. He remained at large in the publics imagination due to a series of letters and phone calls to newspapers. Of course some of these were by copycat nutjobs, but the allure of the serial killer story is always intriguing.
Fincher has made a serious film here which may not appeal to people who're looking for another Se7en. It's not moodily brooding, or lit in beautiful tones, neither does it make the hairs on the back of your neck creep up, but what it does do is explain a whole case from beginning to end, a fairly unusual occurrence in our quickfix film times. No wonder it lasts 158 minutes, and no wonder Fincher insisted he couldn't make it any shorter and still tell the story. This he succeeds in, but this may be at the cost of some viewers patience or attention span. The minutiae of an investigation won't appeal to everyone particularly as the main protagonist, cartoonist Robert Graysmith is played with such austerity by Jake Gyllenhaal.
In the beginning Graysmith - who also wrote the book- follows the case from the sidelines in his job as cartoonist on the San Francisco Chronicle, but as the years go on and the cases are unsolved, he becomes obsessed with finding the killer. His determined compulsion leads him to investigate and put together details that the police have missed. This isn't surprising as the victims have been murdered in different counties, and there's hardly any what we'd know of today as 'joined up policing' . In fact some police staff are defensive in their protection of the evidence they have gathered, making the job of lead Police Inspectors Toschi and Armstrong very difficult.[img][/img]
The films study of obsession is interesting, highlighted particulary by Graysmith's slide from family man, from the unwise involvement of his children in reading clues, to eventually allowing his family to fade from his life. Mark Ruffalo shines onscreen as the careworn and harrassed lead detective David Toschi who also suffers the frustration of the unsolved case. Mark Ruffalo's a great character actor - getting better as he gets older imo. So you don't get completely bogged down in misery, Fincher gives us Toschi bearing more than a passing resemblance to Peter Falk's Colombo, and for a lighter touch we have Robert Downey jnr giving the journalist Paul Avery a loucheness that'll make you smile.
Fincher is hell bent on giving the viewer every technicality from the case that it could possibly cram into it's 158 minutes, and in a lesser directors hands it could've been messy and hard to follow, but no, relentless it may be but you're taken along never losing the plot.
I absolutely LOVED the period detail. It must've cost a bloody fortune to make all those 1960s and 70s sets/clothes/hairstyles - the attention to detail was formidable and the atmosphere fantastic, the clarity of the light in the film is excellent too. Can't wait for the dvd so I can look at the backgrounds in a little more detail instead of having to concentrate on what was going on!
Enyoyed it immensely, specially when I remembered on the way home that 'that guy' was Norm Gunderson from Fargo
Fincher has made a serious film here which may not appeal to people who're looking for another Se7en. It's not moodily brooding, or lit in beautiful tones, neither does it make the hairs on the back of your neck creep up, but what it does do is explain a whole case from beginning to end, a fairly unusual occurrence in our quickfix film times. No wonder it lasts 158 minutes, and no wonder Fincher insisted he couldn't make it any shorter and still tell the story. This he succeeds in, but this may be at the cost of some viewers patience or attention span. The minutiae of an investigation won't appeal to everyone particularly as the main protagonist, cartoonist Robert Graysmith is played with such austerity by Jake Gyllenhaal.
In the beginning Graysmith - who also wrote the book- follows the case from the sidelines in his job as cartoonist on the San Francisco Chronicle, but as the years go on and the cases are unsolved, he becomes obsessed with finding the killer. His determined compulsion leads him to investigate and put together details that the police have missed. This isn't surprising as the victims have been murdered in different counties, and there's hardly any what we'd know of today as 'joined up policing' . In fact some police staff are defensive in their protection of the evidence they have gathered, making the job of lead Police Inspectors Toschi and Armstrong very difficult.[img][/img]
The films study of obsession is interesting, highlighted particulary by Graysmith's slide from family man, from the unwise involvement of his children in reading clues, to eventually allowing his family to fade from his life. Mark Ruffalo shines onscreen as the careworn and harrassed lead detective David Toschi who also suffers the frustration of the unsolved case. Mark Ruffalo's a great character actor - getting better as he gets older imo. So you don't get completely bogged down in misery, Fincher gives us Toschi bearing more than a passing resemblance to Peter Falk's Colombo, and for a lighter touch we have Robert Downey jnr giving the journalist Paul Avery a loucheness that'll make you smile.
Fincher is hell bent on giving the viewer every technicality from the case that it could possibly cram into it's 158 minutes, and in a lesser directors hands it could've been messy and hard to follow, but no, relentless it may be but you're taken along never losing the plot.
I absolutely LOVED the period detail. It must've cost a bloody fortune to make all those 1960s and 70s sets/clothes/hairstyles - the attention to detail was formidable and the atmosphere fantastic, the clarity of the light in the film is excellent too. Can't wait for the dvd so I can look at the backgrounds in a little more detail instead of having to concentrate on what was going on!
Enyoyed it immensely, specially when I remembered on the way home that 'that guy' was Norm Gunderson from Fargo
Last edited by christine; 05-23-07 at 01:54 PM.