Synopsis

This film is based on a real and notorious string of brutal murders, committed in the late 1960's and early 1970's in the San Francisco, California area. The serial killer, who called himself the Zodiac, was never caught. This movie focuses on the investigation of the murders and how the case affected the lives of those who sought to bring the killer to justice.

Pros:

• Great pacing and direction by David Fincher.


• Outstanding acting by a fine ensemble cast.


• An engrossing story that never gets boring.

Cons:

• I'm at a loss to find complaints. The crimes themselves were never definitively solved, so there's that … but that aspect of the real life story is actually a strength in the context of this film.

Generally:

4.5 on a five scale. Stellar. If you can handle the frustrating truth of the story, you'll love this film.

Extended Review:

Although David Fincher's outstanding Zodiac is named for a serial killer, those who see it looking for gore will be disappointed. The film isn't at all concerned with the violence of the Zodiac's murders, and is only marginally concerned with the killer himself. Instead, this is a movie about those who make solving crime their business and their obsession. This is a story about cops and newspaper reporters, handwriting experts, lawyers, etc. Zodiac is primarily interested in those people and their families, and how obsession can be just as devastating as a bullet, just as suspenseful as a darkened hallway. It's damn near impossible to take your eyes off of this movie. I enjoyed every scene, every frame, every line of dialogue.

David Fincher has been a favorite director of mine for a while now. His films Se7en and Fight Club have been some of the smartest and most stylish eye-candy of the past ten years. Even his relative flops, like the underrated Panic Room, have been artistic successes. So when I find out that Fincher is working on something new, I think I'm usually justified in getting excited. I was excited to see Zodiac, but the movie is honestly far better than I'd had reason to hope it would be. It might be fair, in fact, to call this Fincher's best film yet. With Zodiac, Fincher is focusing for the first time entirely on story and character. There are none of Fight Club's gimmicks, none of Se7en's goth atmospherics. If Zodiac succeeds or fails, it's entirely on the strength the story and the cast. I'm happy to say that, in my opinion, Zodiac is quite a success.

You could almost call it two successes, in fact, since Zodiac can almost be called two movies. At more than two and a half hours, Zodiac has plenty of time to contain two distinct acts, and it does. The first act, focused on the investigation as the murders are taking place, is taught and engrossing. The second act, focused on an ongoing investigation of the case four years later, is even tighter, more suspenseful, and just as engrossing as the first half of the film. It's rare that I can say this about a long movie, but at no point during Zodiac did I find myself checking the time or wondering how much was left of the film. In fact, when it ended, I wanted to know more, see more, spend more time with the characters. How's that for artistic success?

Fincher's movie sticks very closely to Robert Graysmith's book about the case and the investigation, and Graysmith is played in the film by Jake Gyllenhaal who renders his character with the best work I've seen from that actor. Gyllenhaal's performance, however, is matched by his peers in the film. There's not a bum performance in the bunch. Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards are great as the two cops who find their lives hanging on the hopes of catching the killer. Robert Downey Jr. gives yet another of his always outstanding performances as a reporter who gets drawn into the case and eventually targeted by the killer. And a cabal of reliable character actors (Donal Logue, Chloe Sevigney, Dermot Mulroney, Elias Koteas and others) are strong in performances that fall short of the others only with regard to screen time. It's said that Fincher often makes his actors reshoot any given scene sometimes seventy times or more. If so, they should thank him for his demands. Fincher has quite simply captured some of their best work in this film.

What's amazing about Zodiac, however, is that the film never slows down or becomes predictable, even when we're sure we know how it is bound to end. Graysmith is sure in his book that he knows who the killer was, and the movie gives him the benefit of the doubt, following the source material to it's conclusions. Along the way we see Graysmith lose his job on the editorial staff at the San Francisco Chronicle and drag his family into his investigation with him, alienating his wife and bewildering his children. The audience follows Graysmith as he crafts his own amateur investigation into the murders, getting far too close for comfort to finding the answers he seeks. Through Fincher's lens we tag along with Gyllenhall's character to prison interviews, dusty police record rooms, and at least one believably scary, dark basement. These sequences provide the movie's tensest frights, and they happen years after the Zodiac killings have stopped.

At one point, Gyllenhall's beleaguered Graysmith tells his frustrated wife that he'd be able to finish his book and put the case behind him if only he could decide who the killer is, look him in the eye and know he's guilty. I won't tell you if he gets that chance or not. I'll say, though, that in a way it's relevant and in another way it isn't. Finding the killer becomes the principle obsession of Graysmith's life … but keeping cold cases alive is a matter of constant second-guessing, lost sleep and endless obsession. There'll always be another angle to consider, another possible suspect, another bit of evidence that changes everything when considered in the right light. For the Robert Graysmiths of the world, the catch will never be as satisfying as the chase. Like the Zodiac himself, his pursuer can never quit playing the game. It surely wouldn't make for much of a life … but it has made for one remarkably good film.

Trailer:

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PS - If you saw it in the theater and loved it, don't go buy Zodiac just yet. There's a director's cut DVD, jammed with extras, scheduled for early next year. Wendy and I look forward to buying that cut of the film. The current Zodiac DVD is strictly for renting.

Labels: Entertainment, Movie Reviews, Movies