I think David Fincher’s Zodiac is his most under-appreciated film. Note how I didn’t say underrated, as that wold go to Panic Room (in my eyes). Zodiac garnered great reviews and all the Fincher fans I know adore this movie, but everyone can agree when it deserved something more (perhaps some Oscar nominations?). I don’t really care about the Oscars, but it would have been nice to see Fincher recognized for something (until Benjamin Button).

Zodiac is a continuity editor’s wet dream come true. I forget how much time passes by in this film, but I think it was upwards of, say, nine-teen years? Towards the end of the movie you can literally see the gray hairs on top of Mark Ruffalo’s head, the pot belly of Robert Downey, Jr.‘s Paul Avery, and the sunken eyes of Jake Gyllenhaal’s overtly obsessive Robert Graysmith. The film chronicles the rise and fall of the monumental manhunt for the notorious serial killer who has murdered around regions of the San Francisco Bay area, Zodiac. He would murder his victims and then, a short while after, mail the top three newspaper companies in the area with mocking letters and ciphers that contained clues, if they could be solved. Real-life Robert Graysmith is a cartoonist at one of these papers, and soon grows from being mildly interested in solving the puzzles to excessively neurotic as he tries to solve a case that he thinks everybody has gave up on.

David Fincher is, perhaps, one of my favorite American contemporary filmmakers. He is such a technical mastermind that his films are just mouth-watering to view. He is also one of the very few people who I think uses CG right. Remember that opening shot of the swooping landscape of San Francisco at night? OR the time lapse shot of the building being constructed, to show how much time has passed? Fincher manages not to go completely overboard with his use of CG and, in a way, it looks astounding. I love his swooping city shots in CG. The only other bits of CG that I can think of would have to be the blood spurts after the victims are shot. Sure, you can obviously tell it’s CG but it helps give the film a rather vintage, glossy feel. This could be the fact that most of the film was shot on digital video, but high speed cameras were used for the actual murders. And this film was edited on Final Cut Pro, not Avid. Score.

The big thing I really love about Zodiac is that it isn’t gruesome serial killer torture porn. We don’t have shots of the Zodiac in his lair masturbating to birds nailed on his walls, and the killings (while violent) aren’t over the top and aren’t meant to disgust the audience (just listen to the music in some of these scenes). One killing that stands out most to me is the couple laying on the hillside by the beach, where we first see Zodiac in his outfit. He saunters over, ties them up and then proceeds to stab them. After stabbing the man he moves on to the women, mainly because, “he gets so caught up in the women that he forgets about the men.” What makes this stand out to me is that once the Zodiac starts going to town on this lady, we cut to a close up of the male’s face, twisting in pain from his body, and more importantly, the fact that he can’t do anything to save the girl that he loves. It’s from these angles that the scene was shot that gave me a National Geographic sense, like a documentary showing you what happened back in 1970 (?).

The script is tight and contains everything you would want to see in a film. It balances the right amount of lighthearted comedy with enough suspense and dread that each corner the film moves around leaves you stunned and, unexpectedly, craving more. I would love to see Fincher’s original cut of the film, which ran over three hours. I have the director’s cut on DVD, and that’s the closest we’ll ever come to seeing the full version. Zodiac is an investment that will reward its very patient viewers. Many people may be put off by the running time or from watching Jake Gyllenhall run around for over two and a half hours, but Zodiac is a real treat and bound to become a secret gem in contemporary cinema. Rarely recognized, but absolutely breathtaking.