Joe Barber Reviews “Zodiac”

by Joe Barber on Mar.10, 2007, under Joe Barber's Movie Reviews

Director David Fincher has been a leader in bringing more edge and grit to the thriller genre in recent years. Starting with “Seven,” Fincher has taken the basic elements of the scary movie and added a layer of everyday drabness to them that seeks to heighten the horror and tension. His visual sense, whether in “Alien 3,” “Fight Club” or “Panic Room,” emphasizes grime and drabness, giving a physical look to the ordinariness of sometimes unspeakable evil. In his latest film, “Zodiac,” he moves from imaginary terror to the real life fear that gripped Northern and Southern California in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s as a serial killer carried out vicious attacks while taunting authorities with bizarre messages.

Starting with a shooting on July 4, 1968 that killed a young woman and left her male companion badly wounded, the “Zodiac” killer shot and stabbed several people in and near San Fransisco and Los Angeles, while sending strangely coded messages to newspapers in both areas, taunting the police and threatening more, grander violence. While the police in the affected communities strive to overcome juristictionasl roadblocks that haper the investigation, two San Fransisco “Chronicle” journalists, reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey, Jr.) and editorial cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) also become enmeshed in the manhunt.

As the hunt heats up and cools off, the struggle to stop the killer leads all involved in different directions. As the case remains unsolved, frustrations grow and careers and lives are affected. Intially a currious bystander, Graysmith becomes more obsessed with finding an answer to the puzzle of who and why. That obsession brings him-and his reluctant mentors among the police-to a tension filled final track down in the case.

Fincher, working from a screenplay by James Vanderbilit based on a book by Graysmith, does an amazingly detailed job of re-creating the mood and feel of the times and places where the story took place. Unlike his other films, the settings are often bright and sunny, yet the light offers little comfort, as some of the movie’s most horrifying scenes happen in the daytime. Fincher finds “the devil,” so to speak, in the details and presents them thoroughly, allowing us to feel as if we are part of the hunt and involved in the danger.

The acting ensamble does a god job of bringing most of the characters to life in a vivid manner. Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards, portraying the two San Fransisco detectives who lead the investigation, make their characters frustration and determination totally credible and involving. Robrt Downey, Jr. is spot on as the talented, but self-destructive crime reporter Avery, who loves the thrill of the hunt, but ends up betraying several [eople, including himself. Gyllenhaal is solid as Graysmith, but either he or Vanderbilit makes a major mistake in crafting Graysmith as a kind of nice enigma to the killer’s malevolent one. The compulsion that drives him is never sufficiently presented, leaving the movie’s major protagonist disconnected from their audience.

At two hours and forty minutes, “Zodiac” also feels a bit padded and unable to find a way to bring itself to a satisfying conclusion, much as in the actual case, though it does make a very credible case for the identity of the actual killer. That said, “Zodiac” is a relatively well made movie, one that is memorable and worth seeing.

MPAA RATING: R for profanity, sexuality and occasionally graphic violence
JOE’S RATING: THREE AND A HALF STARS