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Instead, in order for a director to truly craft a great mystery, he or she has to instill both a sense of intensity toward discovering the true villain, and giving rich enough plots and characters to keep the audience coming back again and again. David Fincher’s Zodiac, I am happy to report, is a mystery that follows this formula.

Fincher’s films often have a superb sense of urgency, but not since his first great movie, Se7en, has there been such a gut-churning use of blood sprayed on the screen. Zodiac tells several tales, all of them rather intimately, each relating back to a gruesome serial murderer called Zodiac who seems more bent on publicity than on actual homicide. The story interweaves Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), a cartoonist who becomes obsessed with discovering the secret behind the Zodiac’s identity, and a soft-spoken cop (Mark Ruffalo) trying to mute his obsession for the same discovery. The movie shifts so smoothly and rapidly that you don’t mind when Ruffalo and Gyllenhaal has been absent from the screen for a large chunk of time. Instead you hunger for both storylines, as each character is riveting and compelling in his own way. The supporting cast is an equally rich bunch, particularly Brian Cox as the eccentric publicity hound Melvin Belli, who gets a great scene on a morning talk show.

The mystery itself is as rich as the cast, and it won’t matter to true cinephiles that the film stretches to nearly three hours. There is no portion that doesn’t suck the viewer in, making them yearn for an answer. The movie always seems to be keeping the Zodiac killer just out of reach; even the beginning shows his murder victims reactions while keeping his identity very near the surface of the movie. The audience, therefore, is always attuned to the search, becoming like cinematic Hardy Boys, trying to crack the case along with the amateur sleuth Gyllenhaal.

Zodiac, with rich characters and plotlines, seems to abandon the recent movie-of-the-week mysteries like Hollywoodland in favor of the rich, if less accessible noir films like Touch of Evil and Chinatown, gambling with the audience’s attention by not laying the plotline out in a neatly etched line. Throughout the film, the mystery remains the focus, but if the audience’s attention strays just slightly they’ll catch the believable torture that plagues Gyllenhaal and Ruffalo as they wrestle with unanswered questions and their inability to find solace in the unknown. The movie could be watched three times over, and still the audience would be coming back with theories, investigating every nook and cranny for clues towards both the mystery and the men unlocking its secrets.

So grab your magnifying glass and faithful Watson and head to Zodiac, a movie that takes the glorious risk of being both intelligent and stylish. Not only will you be able to play detective, you’ll be able to catch the first truly great movie of 2007.