Cross Post from the other Zodiac thread. My Review.
At two hours and forty minutes without commercial breaks, "Zodiac" would have faired better as a CBS miniseries, with commercial breaks, than a feature film. Director David Fincher seemes to have consciously toned down the imaginative muse that served him well in his other films. The result was, despite moments of true thrill and fear, a laconic, drawn out and at times downright boring film.
I could immediately understand why the film treatment of Robert Graysmith's true-crime bestseller would be very difficult to translate into a film that could sustain the level of fear and entertainment that it needed in order to succeed. The time period stretched over some twenty years, with periods when nothing happens. Zodiacs own sporadic communications with the authorities could well have caused the collapse of this screenplay, which after the first hour leave the movie goer feeling like it was time to go to bed and watch the rest the next night.
While there were some excellent performances, and some brave attempts at excellent performances, the actors portraying the two main characters were the weak links in the film. Both Mark Ruffalo as Inspector David Toschi, and Jake Gyllenhaal as San Francisco Chronicle political cartoonist, turned true-crime author Robert Graysmith, seemed miserably miscast. Neither actor were of sufficient age to carry off their respective roles, and in the case of Gyllenhaal, he appeared to de-age as his charectars obsession with Zodiac began destroying everything in his life. There was very little in the way of flesh to his portrayal of Graysmith, which made it difficult to care about why he became so enthralled with the serial killer. Ruffalo faired better as Toschi, in part, because much of his performance was paired with the ever entertaining Anthony Edwards as his investigating partner, who eventually requests a transfer off the case and out of the homicide department. Stand out performances from Robert Downey Jr as the self-destrucitve Chronicle crime reporter Paul Avery, and John Carroll Lynch as the only real suspect in the killings kept me watching whenever they were on screen.
The screenplays largest fault was the far to quick fading of Toschi's obsession, and Graysmiths taking up of the investigation. It was around the time that Toschi began to not care, that I also began to feel the same way.
