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Director: David Fincher

Release Date: 18 May 2007

Tagline: There’s more than one way to lose your life to a killer.

Main Cast:

Jake Gyllenhaal … Robert Graysmith

Mark Ruffalo … Inspector David Toschi

Anthony Edwards … Inspector William Armstrong

Robert Downey Jr … Paul Avery

This is a rather interesting film that is based on Robert Graysmith’s books on the Zodiac serial killer of the 1960s & 1970s. It’s a very atmospheric film that, due to the fact that the case remains unsolved, focuses mainly on the investigation. The murders are treated with respect and are not sensationalised in any way. I wasn’t overly familiar with the case before watching the film, and so I had no preconceived ideas as to who the killer might be, and how he managed to evade arrest and conviction.

The acting, on the whole, was good and Jake Gyllenhaal was, as always, excellent. My biggest gripe with the whole film though was the largely incoherent dialogue; the worst offender being Robert Downey Jr, who mumbled his way through the whole film and also delivered half of his lines through a cigarette. Fortunately though, his role is mostly in the first half of the film, and things do improve somewhat later on. There were also many times that the background noise and score were too loud, which resulted in difficulty in hearing the actors and made following the story very difficult. In a way, I shouldn’t be surprised at this, as I thought that the dialogue at the start of Se7en was incoherent too.

Overall, Zodiac is a well handled film that has left me wanting to know more about the case, and, despite the mumbling, I enjoyed it.

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