zodiac

Zodiac

Zodiac belongs in the genre known as the "police procedural," but few

films take that title so literally. David Fincher's atmospheric,

lengthy and complex new film looks at the infamous Zodiac Killer

murders from every conceivable angle, examining every last shred of

evidence. Just as the trio of protagonists - a reporter, a cartoonist

and a cop - grow increasingly obsessed with the case, Fincher's film

too lingers on every crime scene photo, visits and revisits every key

witness, scrutinzes every connection for some minor, overlooked nuance

that might shed some light on this bizarre tangle of events.

The film can be an exhausting experience. For 150 minutes, Fincher

piles on the facts, figures and details of the case, rarely coming up

for air. It's a rare cop film, or any film for that matter, that's so

willing to abandon all structure and storytelling conventions in the

service of accurately following an investigation. James Vanderbilt's

screenplay is absolutely relentless, and even brave in a way. It

counts on an audience to remain actively engaged with an unsolvable

mystery for nearly three hours, without ever pandering or breaking the

tension. Watching Zodiac is like reading the SFPD police file on the

Zodiac case - informative, grim and fascinating.

That's not to say it's dry. In fact, the film's quite funny, with some

terrific dialogue and a slew of memorable, lived-in performances. And

as I pointed out, this is not a film with a lot of down time. It's

captivating, particularly for a film of its length, fast-forwarding

through a decade's worth of strange events as succinctly as possible.

I'm just saying, horror and suspense fans looking for Seven Part 2, or

anything else looking for a fun movie for a Saturday night, consider

yourself warned. This film's closer to Oliver Stone's JFK than

Jonathan Demme's Silence of the Lambs.

Why the fascination with catching Zodiac? Reporter Paul Avery (Robert

Downey Jr.) notes at one point that more local citizens will lose

their life commuting to work that month than were ever killed by the

mysterious man in a mask. SFPD Inspector David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo)

muses that 200 San Franciscans have been murdered during the time he's

spent seeking out the Zodiac Killer. And yet both of these men devote

years of their lives to the case.

If pressed, they'd probably give some stock response. It's their job

to find the killer. He needs to be stopped before kills again. The

only one who's even remotely honest with himself is cartoonist Robert

Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), the San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist

who hovers around Avery's desk all day absorbing clues and

information. Graysmith likes puzzles and begins working out the

complicated, coded messages the killer sends to the newspaper after

every murder.

For him, what begins as an intellectual exercise - am I more clever

than a serial killer? - soon becomes a fixation. Under the guise of

writing a book about the case, Graysmith completely loses himself in

the piles of forensic evidence, the tiniest details, of all the

individual crimes. The positions in which the bodies were found. The

pattern of phone calls made the day of the first murder. The

handwriting on a promotional poster for a film screening. (In one of

the film's many creative passing-of-time montages, Fincher

superimposes Zodiac's scrawlings and Graysmith's handwritten notes

over the newsroom walls, filling every last corner of space around him

with facts, figures and data.)

Graysmith admits to his beleaguered wife Melanie (Chloe Sevigny) that

his passion for the Zodiac is borne of his own vanity. A lowly

cartoonist in an office full of massive egos who can't wait to remind

him how little he matters, Graysmith at first sees the murders as a

way to prove his own worth. He needs to conquer this man, who has made

such a display of boastful superiority. The Zodiac states repeatedly

that he is smarter and more capable than the police and the reporters

and anyone else who could try to catch him (and what are random,

motiveless murders but repeated demonstrations of ones mastery over

others)?

Some of the most disturbing of his letters to the San Francisco

Chronicle detail his warped personal mythology, in which his victims

become his slaves in the afterlife, giving him not one but two

opportunities to rule over their fate. Fincher and cinematographer

Harris Savides occasionally shoot the film from what could be

considered the delusional Zodiac's point of view, looking down upon

the city of San Francisco from an omniscient birds-eye view. (At one

point, the camera looks down from an impossible angle on the top of

the Golden Gate Bridge. In another sequence, we watch the TransAmerica

Pyramid being built in sped-up motion.)

So it's only natural, in a way, that others would respond to this

grandiose show of dominance with equal fervor and determination. And

perhaps what Vanderbilt and Fincher do best in the film is reflect

just how hopeless and soul-sucking an enterprise chasing the Zodiac

Killer really was. The film eventually zeroes in on one or two likely

suspects, but neither of them seem quite capable of the elaborate

scope and craftiness of these crimes. The Zodiac manages to commit

several murders, phone the homes of witnesses and journalists, appear

by voice on a TV chat show and repeatedly taunt several high-ranking

SFPD detectives, all without ever coming close to being caught.

Worse yet, every piece of evidence that comes along in the multiple

decades of the investigation seems to contradict all the other

evidence. Avery suggests on multiple occasions that the real Zodiac

Killer may be taking credit for crimes he did not commit. Was he

really the sicko who threatened a mother and her baby on the road near

Modesto?

These kinds of uncertainties come to haunt all three men, bringing

each of them to a state of mental collapse. All three performers do

solid work in the film's final stretch, but Mark Ruffalo in particular

stands out. His Toschi, verbally and physically, is utterly unlike any

other character the man has ever played. And though Gyllenhaal does a

nice job of capturing Graysmith's manic, paranoid intensity in

pursuing 10-year old leads, and Downey Jr. has a stark, knowing grace

playing a fading alcoholic cokehead, this felt like Ruffalo's movie

all the way. He's absolutely heartbreaking when he rejects all of

Graysmith's new evidence. He wants to get reinvigorated and finally

solve this thing, but knows deep down that the case will never be

closed. It has, at this point, already destroyed his career and

possibly his life.

Aside from these three strong central performances, Fincher has filled

every minute of screen time with great character actors and familiar

faces. (I wasn't kidding with those JFK comparisons). The

underappreciated Elias Koteas does a nice, subtle job as a canny small

town sheriff. Brian Cox is hilarious as the infamous Hollywood lawyer

(and Jack Ruby's attorney) Melvin Belli, to whom the Zodiac reaches

out in a time of need. Phillip Baker Hall has a few great scenes and a

questionable fingerprint expert.

As potential subject Arthur Leigh Allen, John Carroll Lynch gives

perhaps the film's best, and certainly most unsettling, performance.

Allen's so creepy, Toschi wants to arrest him on the spot, but of

course there's no crime against generally being an oddball. I

recognized Lynch from his relatively small role as Norm Gunderson in

the Coen Brothers' Fargo, but there's absolutely nothing folksy or

sweet about Allen. His interrogation is one of the film's most

startling, well-written scenes.

Rewatching Silence of the Lambs about a year ago, I noticed its

corniness for the first time. The movie scared me shitless when I

first saw it years ago, and I have always thought of it as an

effective, chilling horror film. Rewatching it, I still admired the

Jodie Foster performance and the subtle ways that Demme constantly

notes the thinly-veiled sexual harrassment to which all female law

enforcement officers become accustomed. But I found the Hopkins

performance silly and not particularly frightening, and his

increasingly gory antics ludicrous in the extreme. (The human

face-mask scene didn't work for me at all. It looks incredibly fake.)

Demme's film takes the business of catching serial murderers and turns

it into a cartoon for our entertainment, inspiring an entire

generation of mundane TV series and cheap B-grade knockoffs. (Suspect

Zero, I'm looking in your direction...) It works alright as a fantasy.

But that's not what Fincher has done here. He already played that game

once with Seven, a film I enjoy for its style and performances but

don't feel strongly about.

Instead, Zodiac looks at police work clinically, pausing occasionally

to note the personality types drawn to this practice and the ensuing

fallout on their private lives. In the first third, we see how

criminals are generally caught. In the second third, we see why these

methods don't work on the Zodiac, and finally, we see how resiliance

and pluck and creativity may be able to overcome even his considerable

preparation and unique genius. It's a turbulent but ultimately

rewarding ride, and one hell of an entertaining film. Probably

Fincher's best work yet, and certainly his smartest.