Reviewed by Stuart O'Connor
Stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr, Chloë Sevigny, Anthony Edwards,
Mark Ruffalo | Written by James Vanderbilt, based on the book by Robert Graysmith
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £19.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 151 minutes | Directed by David Fincher
This is not the first film to be made based on the infamous San Francisco serial killer who caled himself Zodiac — that honour goes to 1971's The Zodiac Killer — but it's fair to say Fincher's effort is probably the best. It's also fair to say that David Fincher has evolved into a very smart, mature filmmaker. Forget the flash of Fight Club and the grisly gore of Se7en, this is a quiet, considered study of an unsolved mystery — although the three murders we do witness are very nasty indeed.
This is not a film about the killings, or even the killer, per se; it's a film of how these events impacted on the lives — professional and personal — of the people involved in trying to solve the crimes. And the person on whom the killer has the biggest impact is the person you'd least expect — Robert Graysmith, an editorial cartoon for the San Francisco Chronicle. Perfectly portrayed by Gyllenhaal (I can't look at him now without seeing the next Spider-Man), Graysmith is a rather quiet, meek and thoughtful man who lets his obsession to uncover the killer's identity ultimately take over his life — more so that the police officers involved (Edwards, in a bad wig, and Ruffalo) and the Chronicle's police roundsman (Downey Jr). Long after these three have moved on, Graysmith is still plugging away, digging through old files, interviewing witnesses and survivors. All to no avail — the killer was never caught, and the case is unsolved to this day.
Zodiac reminds me a lot of Alan Pakula's All The President's Men. It beautifully evokes the era — rotary-dial telephones (just how did we cope before mobiles?), newsrooms full of smoke, typewriters and boxes full of paper rather than computers, a much slower pace of life — and never sensationalises or glamorises the events on which its based. Although there is no ultimate resolution, Zodiac is a must-see, if only to watch a master craftsman at work.
EXTRAS ** Just a making-of featurette, called This Is Zodiac, in which FIncher and the cast chat about — surprise, surprise — how they went about making the movie (see, they got a camera, and a bunch of lights, and some costumes...)