zodiac

Zodiac

David Fincher is one of the most meticulous and skillful directors

around today. He is also one of my favorites. Fincher brought us some

modern classics with Se7en, Fight Club and the Game (even his

forgettable Panic Room was an above average flick). He does it again

with Zodiac. Fincher returns to the detective- almost film noir- style

that he created for Se7en, and crafts a wonderful movie. Unlike Se7en,

Zodiac is not so much a thriller as it is a straight up detective

story, presenting one of the most intriguing unsolved mysteries in

recent years.

If you've ever heard anything about the Zodiac Killer, you will know

that this movie follows a series of unsolved murders in the San

Fransisco area from the late sixties through the mid seventies. There

seemed to be nothing linking the murders, except the fact that a

mysteries person known as the Zodiac claimed responsibility. He

communicated through letters and ciphers which he sent to newspapers.

The movie follows police investigators and journalists as they try to

track the killer.

The movie pushes three hours, but seldom drags. In fact, it gets

better as it goes on. Fincher takes a little bit of time to hit his

stride, showing some unnecessary and unimportant scenes of the actual

murders early on. One of them actually elicited laughs from some in my

theater (not entirely out of line either). Once the movie gets into

the investigation, it starts to get interesting and develops the

characters: Inspector David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) who heads the

investigation for years, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), the

cartoonist turned recreational investigator who gave up everything for

the case and eventually wrote the book this movie is based on, and

Paul Avery (Rober Downy Jr.), a journalist who works with Graysmith,

and reports on the Zodiac Killer. A fantastic cast makes up even the

smaller roles. Brian Cox plays a comically sophisticated attorney,

Anthony Edwards plays Ruffalo's partner, and John Caroll Lynch plays

the prime Zodiac suspect. All of these actors play their parts

astoundingly well.

Fincher always manages to insert a sort of subtle humor in his movies-

at critical moments as well. There is one scene where Graysmith is

questioning someone who he increasingly begins to suspect as being the

Zodiac. As the subtle warning signs mount, Gyllenhaal's reactions make

you chuckle, even in a scene that is tense and genuinely scary.

Fincher is a master of suspense in this regard, keeping certain

aspects light, while still being scary. Paul Avery is another vehicle

for this tool, acting as a foil for Graysmith, Toschi, and just about

every other character in the movie. He has a number of witty lines

that he delivers with panache, and even though he is a tragic figure,

falling into alcoholism, Downy keeps the character light and

entertaining.

The aspect of this movie that intrigued me the most, and kept me

interested was the duality between Ruffalo and Edward's investigator

characters, and Gyllenhaal and Downy's characters. Each pair

independently tried to figure out who the killer was, occasionally

stepping on each others toes. There were even scenes that cut back and

forth between the two, discussing the same issues, but going about it

differently, and arriving at significantly different conclusions.

In the third act, however, the investigation has all but been

forgotten, but Graysmith becomes increasingly more obsessed with it.

Toschi agrees to help him in his research for his book, but only gives

him enough information to get started- everything else must be done on

his own. In a way, this almost gives him an advantage. All the murders

took place in different counties, and the police forces refused to

work together. This bogged down the investigation. Interestingly, the

various officers were almost more willing to work with Graysmith than

the other police departments, possibly because he was investigating

about half a decade later. This section of the movie was my favorite.

It was interesting how Toschi and Avery let the Zodiac killer nearly

destroy their lives early on, then Graysmith gives up everything (his

family and job) in his obsessive investigation.

The only thing I would have liked to seen improved on was the

reasoning behind these various characters obsessions. With the

relative few numbers of murders attributed to the Zodiac compared to

others, why was the police force so concerned with this case as

opposed to others? What caused Graysmith to give up his sanity for the

investigation? Why did he lose his family (with which his relationship

was never well developed)? Was it simply the ciphers?- he did enjoy

puzzles after all. And why was Paul Avery...well...everything about

him? These are questions I feel would have been better to address than

showing the murders themselves. I can understand, however, how with a

three hour movie, adding more dialogue heavy scenes, and subtracting

the few action scenes would be a bad idea.

This movie was good, very good, but not excellent. It had a few flaws,

some unnecessary scenes, and questions left unanswered (and I'm not

referring the question of who was the killer). It wasn't Fincher's