Zodiac

I just saw Zodiac, out on DVD, a movie about a real-life serial killer, The Zodiac, who killed during the sixties and seventies in the San Francisco Bay area. Really though the movie is about a cartoonist who becomes obsessed by the case and later writes two books about it. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the cartoonist -- supporting characters of note are Mark Ruffalo as the beleaguered detective, and fellow newspaper man Robert Downey Jr. deliciously playing the role of the newspaper man gone nutty over case -- he's got some great lines in this movie. He actually becomes a completely destroyed alcoholic, which is interesting given Downey's problems with substance abuse. When I first started watching the movie I was giddy with excitement. I love movies set in a newspaper room, and I love movies where their is an intriguing problem for the actors to chew on. However, the movie kinda strays as it goes on and you start to wonder why the cartoonist is getting so obsessed, he even gets his kids in on solving the mystery of the killer's identity, but all in all Zodiac is worth watching even though it has a less than satisfying ending.