Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)

A series of ritualistic murders in California during the late '60s and '70s were attributed through anonymous letters to the media as the work of a single killer, thereafter known as Zodiac. The story took wing in popular culture as a succession of cryptic clue-leaving psychopaths taunting hard-nosed cops on a mission, from Dirty Harry onwards. Here, after his own dallyings with the topic, most notably in Se7en, Fincher has taken on the original story in a format that has to be commended for sticking as closely as possible to the facts of the ground-out police investigation while running the risk of boring us to tears, particularly as we know that there's no pay-off in the pipeline.
Mark Ruffalo, as the animal-cracker munching proto-Callahan Detective Toschi, whose life gets swallowed up by the case, does an creditable job, and Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr. are amongst a panoply of big names offering dependable support. It does of course hit one dead-end after another in mirroring the real-life investigation, and here's the double-edged sword at the crux of what Fincher is doing: it makes us feel the frustration that the investigators feel, whilst taking us around in circles at the same time. Marks for authenticity and execution then, minus some for still taking place on the same well-worn ground.

5/10