Zodiac

With my new found unemployment I can now go to the cinema in the afternoon and it was with this recently acquired cinematic spring in my step I went to see Zodiac (****).

The film tells the story of the sprawling investigation into a San Francisco serial killer in the late 60s. The always watchable Mark Ruffalo plays the hot-shot detective haunted by the case. Robert Downey Jnr. turns in yet another outstanding performance as an investigate journalist singled out by the killer in a bid to win media fame. Jake Gynellhall completes the triumvirate of male leads as a newspaper cartoonist whose casual interest in the case becomes an obsession.

There’s good support too from Anthony Edwards, Elias Koteas, Phillip Baker Hall and Chloe Sevigny.

The film is equally intriguing and horrific. The killings happen in painfully lingering detail onscreen. It’s less flashy than David Fincher’s previous films and at just over two and a half hours, possibly it’s slightly long.

Good performances all round though.