Fincher occasionally goes a bit flat (Panic Room, anyone?) but he's done a good one here. Robert Downey Jr. does another good semi-comedic turn (can he ever be wholly serious?) and Donnie Darko is quietly obsessed as cartoonist-next-door-turned-investigator. Small but excellent performance by Brian Cox.

The film keeps skipping forward so much I initially thought it was about time travel, but it shows that police work isn't all taking bribes and gunfights, consisting mainly of investigating, fact checking and a total lack of shooting people in the head. Despite it clocking in at 2.5 hours and change, it's never boring. Well, almost. However, the case the film is about dragged on a bit, so it's fitting, I suppose.

Perhaps some other directors could learn that people talking isn't automatically boring, and you don't need a car chase to bookend or interrupt every conversation?