Zodiac

If there was a quote that could sum up my experience of seeing David Fincher's new film Zodiac, it would have to be from Pulp Fiction: "Oh, I'm sorry! Did I break your concentration?" I choose this quote because, when I went to Potomac Yards on Sunday afternoon, the fire alarm in the theater went off about 45 minutes into the film, and everyone was ushered to the nearest exit. Turns out there was an electrical fire in one of the control rooms, and one hour later, everyone was back in the movie theaters watching whatever film they'd come to see—complete with a free readmission ticket.

Suffice it to say, this little incident did break my concentration during my first viewing of Zodiac, though my intrigue wasn't lessened by any means. For the story opens on July 4, 1969, when two young lovers drive their car to the local "lovers lane", as it were, in Vallejo, California . . . only a few minutes after they arrive, a car drives up and parks behind them, hovers there for a few minutes, then drives off. This understandably makes the young couple nervous—especially since the car comes screeching back a few minutes later and again parks behind them. Only this time someone comes out of the car with a flashlight, so they probably assume it's a cop there to send them home. But as soon as the young boy rolls down his passenger's window, the man outside empties his entire gun into their car, killing the young girl (the boy survives). A few days later, an anonymous letter is sent to the San Francisco Chronicle, detailing the crime and pointing to a previous unsolved murder only a few months beforehand. Along with this letter is a cipher that the sender is asking to be placed in the newspaper, daring whoever has the abilities to decode it before he kills again.

Thus, we're formally introduced to the Zodiac killer, the most infamous uncaught serial killer of our time, who preyed on northern California during the late '60s and early '70s. Enter into the picture Robert Graysmith (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), a cartoonist for the Chronicle who takes an interest in the Zodiac killings. He often bounces his ideas off Paul Avery, a sort of hippie reporter for the Chronicle who's hilariously portrayed by Robert Downey, Jr. On the personal front, Graysmith is single father, recently divorced, who starts to get really uneasy when the Zodiac killer starts making public threats about targeting a school bus and young children. And after another murder takes place not aboard a school bus but in a taxi cab late at night, we're then introduced to Detective David Toschi, played by an almost unrecognizable Mark Ruffalo. Thus, we now have the trifecta, as it were, of men who will ultimately pursue every possible lead in the Zodiac case.

The movie deals largely with each man's obsession with the case, and how the frustration and failures to catch this killer ultimately bring each man down. At 2 hours and 36 minutes, Zodiac is a long ride to endure, but that's not to be totally unexpected, for there's an enormous time period that this film covers. I think Fincher handled the timeline pretty well, though he did move pretty fast. He'd frequently start a scene taking place on one day, then the next scene will be half an hour later, the next scene two weeks later, the next scene three months later . . . you get the idea. It jumps around pretty fast, though thankfully not so fast that it loses the audience's attention. I thought Fincher handled the Zodiac killings very well—coming at you lightning-fast, though sometimes predictably. They were pretty graphic, too. (The one by the lake kinda made me cringe.) Granted, the serial killer genre is familiar territory for Finch, who was the part of the genius and genesis behind Se7en, though Zodiac isn't quite as visually stunning as either Se7en or Fight Club. Though as with Se7en, the suspense of thie film creeps into your soul and doesn't let up for a second. I think the creepiest scene for me was when Robert Graysmith visited the home of an old theater manager where one of the Zodiac suspects worked . . . and slowly, Graysmith starts to wonder if he's actually found the Zodiac's lair! The scene of them together in the basement, with the dank air reeking of creaking wood and dripping pipes, you couldn't help but wonder if Graysmith was about to buy the farm right then and there.

If I had one real problem with Zodiac, it's how they structured the plots of the three main characters with respect to each other. Because instead of intertwining each of their stories, Fincher told each person's story all at once before moving on to the next character. That kind of format made it rougher for me to follow, and at the same time, almost made me wonder if the other characters were being neglected, forgotten.

The acting was pretty standard fare, with the notable exception of Robert Downey, Jr.—who completely stole the show as the doped-up, chain-smoking, strung-out Paul Avery. He was actually directly threatened by the Zodiac for writing up some not-so-friendly character pieces on him. Gyllenhaal's Graysmith was kind of a goody-two-shoes character, often referred to as a Boy Scout because he wanted to do everything properly. Ruffalo's Toschi was a good detective, and I give him credit for playing his frustrations more realistically than I've previously seen. For example, when they're interrogating one suspect, he actually admits that he's confused as to what he wants—i.e., does he want this suspect to be the Zodiac so badly because it validates all his theories, or just because he wants it all to be over?

And when they finally started to narrow down a potential suspect in the killings, I was concerned initially about the historical accuracy of the film—i.e., that they would portray their findings as the end-all/be-all definitive proof that Mr. X is indeed the killer, when in real life it may have been inconclusive. Thankfully that wasn't the case here. Fincher and Co. did eventually narrow their suspects down to one, but when I did some research of my own, it turns out that the person in question was the lead suspect in the final analysis, though he was never charged in the killings.

For now, I'll give this a 7.5, because I want to see it again (in one sitting preferrably) to digest all the information that's given to the audience, because there's quite a lot. On another note, it's kind of ironic that Robert and Toschi meet up at a screening of Dirty Harry—because Dirty Harry took its inspiration largely from the Zodiac killings!