“Zodiac”
** 1/2 Director David Fincher has a talent for making films that leave you rattled after the final credits have rolled. Sometimes they’re unforgettable (“Se7en”). Even when they’re not entirely sucessful (“Panic Room”), they disturb. In “Zodiac,” he takes on the serial killings that terrified the Bay Area in the late ’60s. Letters from the murderer delivered to newspapers kept people on edge even when the killer seemed to stop or copycats took over. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Robert Graysmith, who wrote two nonfiction books about the crimes that provide the spine of the film. Featuring an impressive roster (Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, John Carroll Lynch), the beautifully crafted film doesn’t lack in artfulness. What it’s missing is heart and the kind of cultural context that makes it more than cold-case cinema.|R|145 minutes |Released today|Lisa Kennedy
“Reign Over Me”
*** If not for 9/11, former college roommates Alan Johnson and Charlie Fineman’s lives would be nearly identical. Alan has a wife, daughters and a thriving dental practice (endangered by a nutty patient who takes a shine to him). Charlie had a wife, daughters, a good dental business. Now he has the albums “Quadrophenia” and “The River” drowning out the world and a video game occupying the time of sleep. Adam Sandler does a fine, smirkless job handling the emotional baggage of Charlie. Don Cheadle and Jada Pinkett Smith give the movie a dose of marital reality. Donald Sutherland makes a humane cameo as a judge. Director Mike Binder’s film sings about the power of friendship to transform loss and being lost.|R|125 minutes |Released today|Lisa Kennedy
“The Number 23”
** 1/2 Consider “The Number 23” a grim cousin of the wondrously gnarled “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” This movie, too, stars Jim Carrey doing a fine turn as an increasingly unraveling but appealing man. Walter Sparrow is happily married to Agatha (Virginia Madsen). They have a son. When Agatha gives Walter a mystery novel, he quips, “Why should I have some writer fill my head with nonsense? I’ll wait for the movie.” Soon the battered volume called “The Number 23” draws Walter into a noirish tale about a detective, his femme-fatale lover and a blond bent on suicide. The book torments Walter with echoes of his own life. Will his obsession destroy him and his family? Twenty- three guesses.|R|95 minutes |Released today|Lisa Kennedy
