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Apr. 1st, 2007
I finally saw Zodiac
Apr. 1st, 2007 01:52 pmZodiac has some fascinatingly offbeat pieces of casting: I actually had to clap my hand over my mouth during one scene when I suddenly realized that the guy playing the creepy movie buff was, in fact, Charles Fleischer- best known as the voice of Roger Rabbit. Mark Ruffalo does quite well with one of the leads- a real-life inspiration for Bullitt and Dirty Harry; further, one of the main Zodiac suspects (the one who has the interview with the three cops) is played by John Carroll Lynch, best known for playing Marge’s husband in Fargo (“Marge- you gotta have a breakfast.”) The movie itself is well-constructed, although somewhat too long; it takes its own time establishing Jake Gyllenhaal’s cartoonist-turned-investigator as the lead character, which is fine; once it does, though, we have to stay with his character through a few too many red herring-type scenes that feed us one meager clue at a time, while straining too hard for scary effects (the scene with Fleischer’s movie buff, while creepy enough in its own right, is a prime example of this.)
It would seem to be a quixotic effort to make a true-life procedural about an unsolved crime, but Fincher does well enough here; although his work on developing scripts isn’t always on a par with his mise-en-scene (The Game collapses rather spectacularly in its third act; Alien 3 probably never had a chance to start with, given its tumultuous production history), and the narrative unfolds smoothly enough. (Fincher stages an astoundingly creepy killing at the beginning; I don’t think I’ll ever hear Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man” again without thinking of it.) He does indulge in some showy time-lapse photography that’s probably not necessary, but his work with the actors is good to excellent; Robert Downey Jr., in particular, does well with a part that could have degenerated into pure showiness. If I were given to using letter grades for films, I’d give this a solid B+.
It would seem to be a quixotic effort to make a true-life procedural about an unsolved crime, but Fincher does well enough here; although his work on developing scripts isn’t always on a par with his mise-en-scene (The Game collapses rather spectacularly in its third act; Alien 3 probably never had a chance to start with, given its tumultuous production history), and the narrative unfolds smoothly enough. (Fincher stages an astoundingly creepy killing at the beginning; I don’t think I’ll ever hear Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man” again without thinking of it.) He does indulge in some showy time-lapse photography that’s probably not necessary, but his work with the actors is good to excellent; Robert Downey Jr., in particular, does well with a part that could have degenerated into pure showiness. If I were given to using letter grades for films, I’d give this a solid B+.