Zodiac.

David Fincher continues to impress. Of all his movies… Alien 3 (highly underrated, in my opinion. I think it stands shoulder to shoulder with the two before it, the two that follow aren’t even worthy of being mentioned in the same sentence), Se7en, The Game, Fight Club, and Panic Room, this one is the most procedural and deliberate. It doesn’t have the gritty and foreboding atmosphere of Se7en (but then, how many movies do?), the tightrope suspense of The Game, or maddening compulsiveness of Fight Club. But it does have a smattering of all of it that seeps into this film and makes it so much more. In the hands of a different director, this would have been a straightforward police procedural. With Fincher at the helm, it rises above the ordinary and becomes everything that his previous movies were: a complete cinematic experience.

The most distinctive part of a Fincher movie is the visuals and atmosphere. He recreates a climate of fear and skepticism of a 1960’s through 1970’s northern California, caught in a stranglehold by an elusive mass murderer that has struck three separate towns over the span of months. Without modern-day conveniences like cell phones (and fax machines, demonstrated in one amusing scene in which San Fran police personnel must coordinate with three different local departments with the US mail the only apparent method of communication available), this is a much bigger place for a killer to hide. The SF Chronicle, decked out in goldenrod furniture and wood paneling, buzzes with activity as more and more cryptic letters from Zodiac arrive. Political cartoonist Robert Graysmith and stoned reported Paul Avery meet in dark, crowded bars and cramped coffee shops to exchange notes. The two SF inspectors assigned to the case prowl the streets dressed in tan trenchcoats and bowties and driving a mint-green dodge sedan. They’re all small details, but mixed together they evoke a definite time and place that is engrossing. It’s all shot with the skill, visceral energy, and detail that you’d expect from Fincher.

The acting is equally top-notch. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Graysmith with subdued obsession that eventually spirals out of control into a compulsive frenzy as he chases after names, dates, times, locations, any clue that could bring him closer to solving the Zodiac puzzle. Robert Downey Jr plays Paul Avery in an deliriously sublime performance in which he disappears into the role of a stoned, smooth-talking reporter. Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards play the two cops on the case and bring a true sense of worn familiarity to their roles that makes you feel instantly at home with them helming the case as they overturn clue after clue that eventually leads them to what you’re convinced is the ultimate conclusion to the mystery. Aside from the leads, we have great small roles inhabited by the likes of Brian Cox, Philip Baker Hall, Adam Goldberg, and Donal Logue. And then there’s the prime suspect in the case, who enters the interrogation room and holds the audience in the grip of fear with one of the creepiest understated performances this side of Anthony Hopkin’s Hannibal Lecter.

And then there is the story, which I think should be a strong contender for best screenplay this year. The cops, reporters, and audience wade through a dizzying array of clues handled by four police departments in four separate towns, visit grisly crimescenes and many many other sharply-drawn locations, and even dip into some of the personal lives of the people involved to involve us with that obsession, fear, unrest, disappointment, and frustration that a mass murder investigation that spans the years gives us. A surreal storytelling device, the caption that tells us how many months and years have passed since the last scene, simultaneously breaks and rachets up the tension as the film navigates the sprawl of the investigation, marching deliberately towards the final conclusion.

By the time the 160 minutes roll by it’s a complete cinema, a work of pure craft in which great characters played by great actors present a compelling story in a memorable visual experience.