Robert Downey Jr -- Clearly A Star Here

Zodiac is a very , very good movie(if a frustrating one) from 2007. In 2008, Robert Downey Jr. would land the "Iron Man" role that not only got him a zillion-dollar payday as "the first Marvel hero to launch the Avengers franchise"(Spider-Man had been a separate deal), but set him up to be THE Marvel hero for over a decade(the end credits of the final Avengers lead up through scores of players, to him.)

RDJ seems to have appeared in a couple of other movies in 2007, and he would thread his "Iron Man" stardom with a short-lived Sherlock Holmes franchise, Tropic Thunder, and some other roles but...

...in "Zodiac," you can SEE the star he would become. "Iron Man" did it, but RDJ got Iron Man, I think, because his star power was well on display in Zodiac.

RDJ shares the leads in Zodiac with two other actors of somewhat the same level of stardom at the time -- Jake Gyllenhaal (as the earnest "Boy Scout" newspaper cartoonist who obsesses over finding the Zodiac) and Mark Ruffalo(as the SF cop whose obsession is a bit more professional, and whose failure to catch Zodiac proves painful.)

Jake and Mark get more screen time -- particularly in the third act -- but RDJ always seems to outpace them, star-power wise. RDJ then -- and with a little wear and tear now -- is a handsome man(more handsome still with a beard) who aged out of a baby faced and comical beauty(see: Weird Science) into a hard-won maturity(perhaps the only real benefit of his self-punishing drink and drugs period -- and he drug tested to get Iron Man.)

Meanwhile: those great line-readings. Witty, flip and fast -- suddenly swerving off from one sentence into a totally new one -- RDJ would rather over-use this technique in his years and years as rich wiseacre Tony Stark...but in "Zodiac" it was all pretty new and impressive. Those other two guys rather fall off the screen when RDJ is there.

And he's not there much. Rather reminscent of Kevin Spacey in "LA Confidential," RDJ here doesn't have to do the "heavy lifting" of carrying the plot, he zips in and out as "comic relief" who slowly becomes serious...and sad (in an echo of his real life, his newspaper reporter character soon gets trapped by drinking, if not drugs...the Zodiac takes him down in a very personal way.)

Surely Mark Ruffalo brims with frustrated authority as the cop who inspired Bullitt and Dirty Harry but can't match them in real life, and there are other fine actors in the cast(Anthony Edwards from ER as Ruffalo's partner; sexy Candy Clark from the 70's grown old but impressive as a newsroom mother hen.) And the story is realy, and ultimately about Earnest and Crazed Jake.

But RDJ runs the table -- you love him while he's there, you miss him when he's gone, and its a great moment when he shows up briefly near the end.

A lot of factors brought RDJ Tony Stark and Iron Man(Tom Cruise turning down the role was one; OUCH.) But I think RDJ's fine work in this disturbing, meticulous film was a big one.