movie review zodiac

Movie Review: 'Zodiac'

Posted by CK at 5/22/2007 09:16:00 AM

To put words to the story of this film is a flawed exercise. It is an

examination that arches over many peoples dealings with the case, with

a staggered structure opening with an `All the Presidents Men' type

partnership blossoming, (Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jnr.) only for a

pair of detectives (the oddly cast but effective combination of Mark

Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards) to be introduced well into the running

time become the main protagonists, only then to revert to Jake

Gyllenhaals obsession with the cases resolution. Lines are not clearly

drawn. Time is given over to tense and often brutal murder scenes

which are then undermined by the fact we learn so little of the killer

and the sense of uncertainty that remains surrounding his actual

crimes. They add unnecessarily to the running time and on reflection

do not fit the theme of the movie. We discover late in the day this is

not a serial killer movie, where we ultimately get to look into his

mind and hear of his terrible childhood and the fixations that

inspired his style of killing. The focus here is the note writing, the

interviews, the volumes of files, and not in the sense of a procedural

cop show where everything is wrapped up in 50 minutes but as a

representation of the thoroughness and determination of the people

caught up in investigating the case and the impact the investigation

has on them.

Zodiac opens with the note that the film is based on actual case

notes. This distinction makes an important impact on the film. Not

making the perusual reference to actual events, and while also taking

liberties for dramatic effect and taking time to recreate the era of

the crimes, the film is in itself bordering on the obsessive in

setting out the minutae of the investigation, cataloguing the

progression of time even when there is no real need, so that the

audience pores over the evidence as much as the characters. The effect

is that we feel the frustration onscreen, hit the brick walls, frown

at the bureaucracy and sense the disappointment so that when the time

passing onscreen changes from hours to days to weeks to years, we

share in the sense of spiraling confusion and likelihood that there

will be no answer. This is epitomized in a scene where Jake

Gyllenhaal's character visiting a prisoner linked to the investigation

demands she admit to an individuals name, he wants an answer more than

anything, even more than the truth, so agonizing has his search been.

Fincher goes big on atmosphere, he always does, fusing a historical

recreation and shadow drenched San Francisco, the first part of the

film pans around the city in the same gliding fashion the camera does

around Jodie Fosters house in `Panic Room', these are not just

establishing shots, they are key to imbuing unease and tension. When

the `certainty' of the killers actions are gone the tension and

questions become psychological, the investigators return to the scene

of a crime each anniversary, the passage of time erodes the reason

behind their focus, theories are revisited, founded and unfounded. The

film does need to keep revisiting the idea of the killer to maintain

our anxiety - creeking doors, phone calls, a silly house visit - the

commitment of the characters that we meet would I doubt have made

wholly entertaining viewing, the natural end to their stories comes in

the form of text on screen come the end of the movie, the open ended

real life story allows the movie to only go for subtlety in bringing