Soumitra Jana

CAST: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow, Emily Mortimer Rating: **** When the credit list reads out names like Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Rufallo, Ben Kingsley, and like cherry on top, an IMDb score of 8.1, you don't doubt how the movie would turn out to be. And the funny thing is, even though my cruel hearted friends disclosed the suspense to me even before watching it, I still felt absolutely engrossed in the movie from beginning till the end, thanks to awesome treatment of the movie and an amazing performance put on display by the stellar star cast. It is dark, to the extent that it gives you a feel of being in some sort of bad dream, and a twist in the end which might make you question your own sanity or even question the so-called reality of your life. A detailed review on the technicalities of the movie is a waste of time because it's meaningless to say the direction was superb when you have Martin Scorsese calling the shots or to say the acting was classy when you have top notch actors of the world playing the characters. All you need to know before watching it is that it is as good as you would expect it to be.

CAST: Jake Gyllenhaal as Robert Graysmith. Mark Ruffalo as Insp. Dave Toschi. Robert Downey Jr. as Paul Avery. Anthony Edwards as Insp. Bill Armstrong. Chloë Sevigny as Melanie Graysmith. Brian Cox as Melvin Belli. John Carroll Lynch as Arthur Leigh Allen. Dermot Mulroney as Captain Marty Lee. Rating: **** "Zodiac" is about how three people obsessed with hunting a killer ended up compromising their lives and careers. As the poster suggests, "there's more than one way to lose your life to a killer." The characters keep hitting dead ends as facts and evidence get blurred out by the flow of time, the interference of media and the obstructions of law procedures. It feels like a character development-centered thriller at first, but it slowly turns into a drawn-out, tediously verbose documentary the Zodiac killer investigation and the making of Robert Graysmith's book. Davi Toschi and Paul Avery fall out of scope halfway and, despite the demanding 2.5-hour running time, the film doesn't even bother to show you their aftermath. It's all abruptly resolved with some text before the credits. David Fincher shows high competence behind the camera, but we are far from anything entertaining here. I understand that you want to stick to facts with this kind of biopics, and that excessive dramatization can lead to embarrassing results. Still, this is not the kind of film I was looking for. As many mentioned, the basement scene was pretty cool though.