Alexander

The movie, about arguably the most infamous serial killer in America, is a thought-provoking and visually-stunning adaptation of a true crime that places the audience in the unique position of voyeur and participant. Zodiac (2007) - not to be confused with The Zodiac (2005), which chronicles the same, still-unsolved case - stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo and Chloe Sevigny, and is an excellent hybrid of a police procedural and a newspaper movie, as it serves up the true story of the California murders of the late-60s (committed by the self-proclaimed Zodiac Killer, who claimed to have slain 37 people) with all the facts and suspicions that tormented the public.

Directed by David Fincher, with all the stylistic nuances he brought to Se7en (1995) and Fight Club (1999), and written by James Vanderbilt (based on Robert Graysmith's book), Zodiac, clocking in at 158 minutes, has the feel of a puzzle that you, the viewer, might actually be able to solve if you could just decipher all the evidence.

And there is a lot to work with, for, apart from the crime scene evidence and witness testimony and such (which the movie assiduously details), the killer also teased and terrified the police and the public by sending encrypted letters to the newspapers; these letters supposedly provide clues to the killer's motives, and supposedly reveal the killer's true identity. On August 8, 1969, one of Zodiac's cryptograms was cracked by a California couple. In part, it read: 'I like killing people because it is so much fun; it is more fun than killing wild game in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal of all to kill'.

Bruce Alexander and Omar Francis