ZODIAC

Director: David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en, Alien 3)
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr

Zodiac follows the investigation of the Zodiac killer murders in San Francisco in the 1960s and 70s and it is an undeniably deft bit of filmaking. In form it is basically a simple police procedural (or perhaps an investigative procedural as some of its major characters are newspapermen rather than cops). Maybe a better description would be to note how similar it is to All the President's Men, as layer after layer of evidence and clues are unearthed and the tension ratcheted up as they get nearer and nearer the killer. It is a long, and often fairly slow film, but I enjoyed nearly every minute of it. Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr, and Mark Ruffalo were excellent throughout.

I think it likely that one of the main complaints some viewers might have with this film is the lack of a standard "payoff". Not to ruin it for you, but there is no thrilling climax here. In standard movie terms there's not even a resolution. For my money though, I found that this worked better than if there were either. The search for the Zodiac killer was far more interesting than any silly tacked on action sequence could have been, or even some neatly packaged resolution. The point of the film is the search, the investigation. I will go so far as to say that what I found most disappointing in the film was that it attempted to show an individual as the killer rather than leave us hanging. In reality no one knows who the Zodiac killer is (except perhaps the killer himself if he's not dead). There may be a likely culprit, perhaps even a very likely culprit, but I think the key bit is that it is unresolved. We don't know. We'll never know.

Regardless, as I said the film focuses on the events themselves and the (nearly neverending) search for the killer, not any final discovery. The first half of the movie mostly follows the police (Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards) and a newspaperman (Downey, Jr) as the murders occur, panic strikes the city, and the police search out the killer. At about the half-way point, while the police investigation winds down from lack of evidence, Jake Gyllenhaal almost personally takes over the search. He is a young cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle, only tangentially related to the events in any way, but nearly obsessed with finding the killer. There are many dead ends in the search for clues, but that's part of the excitement. It't like working out a puzzle. If you're into puzzles, I'll bet you'll like Zodiac. If not, maybe not so much.

For my money, the real joy of this film is in the details, though. It's in the relationship of the Zodiac events with Dirty Harry, that came out while the investigation was ongoing. It's with the strange turns the case takes as the Zodiac killer strives to be noticed in the press and on television. It's with the calm, almost nerdy, demeaner of the cops looking for the killer, and how they became celebrities themselves. How they had accusations thrown at them that they planted Zodiac letters for the noteriety it would bring them. Or even the fact that a editorial cartoonist took up the case. All these things really did happen, and are certainly interesting in their own right, but they're even more interesting on screen I think. This is a fine movie, perhaps my favorite Fincher film even (although most of the Fight Club fans will disagree I suspect).

Standouts: A well-made movie all around. Fincher and the actors are all quite good.
Blowouts: Nothing really failed.

Grade: A-