DVD: Zodiac

In the late 1960s in northern California a man who named himself the Zodiac claimed to the killed of people who he has murdered. After the murders he would send a letter afterhe killed his victims to the newspaper, The San Francisco Chronicle demanding that the editors put his words on the front page. This story follows a couple of men who were working next to the Zodiac case. One being a policeman David Toschi played by Mark Rufflo, a newspapers cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) and a journalist Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.). As the years of trying to find out the one question "Who is the Zodiac?" move on some forget about it completely while other bring it to obsession. Based on true story of the real Zodiac, when he was terrorizing California.

The Zodiac is a beautiful film. Ever thing from the sets look and even to the lighting. Mostly everything in Zodiac made if feel that we were really back at those times which gave the story all that more realism. The look was great the light played a big part of this film. The scene's were we see only the victims of the Zodiacs and they use shadows to conceal his face was really scary. This is a very dark film and I really enjoyed it. One scene that I thought was done really well was a scene with a man named Bob Vaughn who was played by Charles Fleischer and he talking with Jake Gyllenhaal. Bob takes Jake's character down to the basement to show him something. With all the lighting the darken look of the basement and the noise around them was really tense. I thought was the scariest part in the film.

The acting in the Zodiac was good. Jake Gyllenhaal did a great performance mostly as the film moved through towards the end. Robert Doweny Jr. and Mark Rufflo both were on par with decent acting and a small role but good nonetheless was Brain Cox's who plays the Lawyer Melvin Belli. The acting alone is a high selling point of this film. I did like the idea of four different actor even though we never see their faces, played the Zodiac when they show him killing his victims. I like this idea because as of today the Zodiac as never been found or identified and with that it gives a sense of when the cops where questioning the suspects that suspense of we don't even know him.

The director David Fincher is one of the best directors around his film list includes Fight Club, Panic Room and Se7en. So basically he's right at home with the thriller aspect of film making. Zodiac does not have that much blood as his past films. With all that I do believe this is best work yet.

With all that said I believe this is one of the best film of 2007 so far and was just over looked. I think that if you could go and see one film this year than this is the film to see. Zodiac is Highly Recommended.

DVD Features

The film is presented in Widescreen Enhanced for 16:9 TVs. The audio includes Dolby Digital English 5.1, French 5.1 Surround with subtitles of English and Spanish. The DVD of the Zodiac does not have any features.

As much as I loved the film Zodiac its hard not to recommend this DVD. The DVD has nothing connected to this, mostly because later in 2008 a Directors Cut is coming to DVD because it has the preview on this DVD. So I would Recommend that you wait to get the directors cut but if you really want to see this film then it is a must Rent.