Zodiac, 2007. Directed by David Fincher, written by James Vanderbilt. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox, John Carroll Lynch, Chloe Sevigny, Dermot Mulroney, Philip Baker Hall and Elias Koteas.
Now showing in theaters around town.
There’s a scene early on in David Fincher’s masterful Zodiac, in which we see the opening routines of the day at The San Francisco Chronicle and a mailman’s route to said newspaper. A letter is sorted; simultaneously the reporters grab their coffee en route to work. We see that the letter is hauled in bags through the streets, into the Chronicle building. There, the scribblers meet, sweat over articles, and gather in the editor’s office to chew over the events of the day and how they’ll lay on the front page. Finally, the secretary has opened the letter and bursts in on the pow-wow, and hands off the note–now bearing dozens of fingerprints–to the editor, who reads the Zodiac killer’s note. The chase is on.
Zodiac is not your usual serial killer movie. In fact, those folks with a serious blood lust, hoping for another Se7en experience will be disappointed–there is precious little blood in Zodiac. What we get instead is a very detailed investigation, a chase that takes a path so twisted, so winding, that’s it’s a wonder that Fincher’s able to keep us abreast of everything. But he does. The result is a film about brilliant people (including, perhaps, the killer) and how their pursuits can, and do, warp them. And eventually liberate them, giving them something to live for.
On a hot Independence Day in 1969, a young couple is seen waiting patiently for the other to make the first move in a secluded spot outside of Vallejo. It’s the usual scene: girl with braces, a guy trying to be cool, leading up to the first clumsy kiss. But the girl is married, and a car pulls up. Is it the husband? Thank God, no, they think, until this stranger, a silent, lumbering man, brutally empties his gun into these two. The young man, Mike Magau survived; his date, Darlene Ferrin was pronounced D.O.A. at the hospital.
A short while later, the Chronicle receives that first letters from the killer, who as yet remains nameless. But as the white shirts in the newsroom ponder what to do with this thing, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), a political cartoonist for the newspaper, finds himself with an unquenchable curiosity, and scribbles down the anagram that the killer included in his letter, and which the murderer claims will identify him, if broken. Assigned to the story is the flamboyant crime writer Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr., in full-on stoner mode, and outstanding). The two men could not be a better study in contrasts. Graysmith is an avowed Eagle Scout first-class who wants to solve the case Hardy Boys style, while Avery is a coke-snorting, booze-hound who is as eager to analyze the Zodiac killer (making the claim that the guy is a repressed homosexual).
Mirroring these two in the police department are the investigation team of David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards). Toschi is a famous cop, the inspiration for Steve McQueen’s Bullitt, and eventually Dirty Harry and the Michael Douglas character in Streets of San Francisco. His squarer half, William, is a perfect foil–calm, collected, and both know exactly what they’re doing. And when a cabbie is shot by the Zodiac in San Francisco, they’re on it like bloodhounds.
The Zodiac killer appealed to this odd collection of men as crossword puzzles attract folks from every walk of life. Their personalities are honed on the chase–Graysmith’s dogged civilian pursuit, combing libraries and files; Avery’s crack reportage, needling the killer to the point that he (Avery) was a target; and the officers, who are seen pursuing this case with such precision and determination its like watching a great jazz trumpeter riff through the most difficult tune.
Zodiac is a movie about thinking, about how people set their minds to work out problems, and where that path leads them. Here, it leads them down strange alleys and darkened basements, routes that often, so painfully often, end up nowhere. The Zodiac himself changes so often he’s like a ghost–he’s ambidextrous, throwing handwriting experts off; his notes and cryptograms are so brilliant, referencing dozens of different sources, that three of the four have yet to be deciphered today; his M.O. changed on apparent whims. Obvious suspects are interviewed, investigated, closed in on, and then, with one contradictory piece of evidence, released–and in some cases, reopened, new evidence fingering someone, only, again, to watch that case fall apart.
The Zodiac shot young adults in the dark while they sat in their vehicles; in broad daylight, masked, he stabbed a couple and left them for dead by a lake (again, the man survived, the woman died); he shot a cabbie in one of Frisco’s wealthiest sections; he threatened bombings and delivered perfect diagrams of a homemade explosive and threatened to shoot children as they departed a bus; he picked up hitchhikers, killed in the ‘burbs and the cities of northern California. Then, when it seems as if the police have settled on a geographical range, it is discovered that he killed far south, near Los Angeles.
To make matters worse, the Zodiac took credit for other’s crimes, and then we find there were likely murders he didn’t take credit for, in places no one figured he’d go.
Fincher’s Zodiac takes a long time to resolve itself, and its ending is profoundly frustrating. The Zodiac case is never wrapped up with tidy little bows and perfect folds, and at times takes on an almost otherworldly sense, as if murder and pursuit are somehow a part of a divine, existential game. Fincher’s camera tracks police cars from on high, sometimes at the height of the spans on the Bay Bridge, through the fog. Like some sort of wicked God, he watches as the dots scurry and chase another elusive dot, one that has murdered yet another dot. There is very little emotion, very little terror, but remains an utterly compelling film, with mercilessly little backstory–we get nothing about Graysmith’s first divorce, and Fincher never hovers over the marital, emotional, or substance abuse problems of his characters. All of whom, it might be added, are portrayed by a bevy of actors guided by a strong hand like I haven’t seen in ages: Gyllenhaal’s Graysmith is a wide-eyed Hardy Boy, Bryan Cox’s Mario Belli is perfectly hammy, and John Carroll Lynch, as a suspect, is frightening, but never too much so. The rest of the cast is equally sound.
I doubt Zodiac will fare well at the box office, and one can only wonder what The Departed’s chances would have been had this film been released in December. As it is, Zodiac is one of the most intelligent thrillers in many a year, and a truly great film.
In brief:
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