David Fincher is one of the most exciting directors working in Hollywood now. His past successes have ranged from the extraordinary (Se7en, Fight Club) to the very watchable (Panic Room) to the mediocre (The Game). But in totality, his works can be said to be a cut above the rest.

In Zodiac, David said that he wanted to try something different. Instead of the usual razzle-dazzle of his stunning camera acrobatics — which are carefully planned before production — he decided to go for a looser, more organic, more instinctive form to filmmaking.

And because David is such a genius, the results are more than satisfying.

Zodiac is a thriller/human drama based on a bizarre murder of American actress Sharon Tate in 1969. The murderer, who called himself Zodiac, began sending letters to press which were written in code. Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain) plays a newspaper photographer who becomes obsessed with cracking the code and finding the killer. Robert Downey Jr plays a crime reporter, while Mark Ruffalo plays the police inspector investigating the case.

All three characters spent years trying to solve the case, and even though there were reasons to believe that a certain paedophile (John Carroll Lynch) had committed the crime, he was never convicted.

Unlike previous David Fincher films, Zodiac isn't just a thriller. It is an engrossing human drama about the men and women whose lives and careers became intertwined with the serial killer, and the people who continue to be haunted by their encounters with him.

When Zodiac opened in the America a few months ago, it performed poorly at the box-office, perhaps because audiences were disappointed that they weren't getting the usual slam-bang action of a David Fincher. But we urge you to keep an open mind and go see it. You may be rewarded with a human drama of uncommon precision and intelligence.