In 1969 the Zodiac serial killer found his first victims. A young couple
listening to music in their car in a dark park became the headline that planted
the first seed of fear in the San Francisco area. The killer called the police
to report his own crime. Then he found another couple lying on a blanket by a
lake on a beautiful day.
By the time
the Zodiac had killed ten people, fear had morphed into panic that spread
through the entire Bay area. The violence of the story takes place in the first
few minutes of the film, allowing us to breathe again as we realize the
filmmakers will settle into the details of a suspenseful hunt that will last for
decades. Police and the press flounder in frustration at the moves of a man who
claims to be smarter than they are – and is.
A hunter of
people, not animals, the Zodiac hunts purely for the joy of the kill. Reveling
in the publicity he generates, he taunts the San Francisco Chronicle with
cryptographic messages, letters, threats, and phone calls. As the years pass a
dedicated but shrinking group stays on the case.
First and
last is Bob Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), a shy young cartoonist in the Chronicle
newsroom. He becomes fascinated, outraged, then obsessed with the search; he is
front and center in a moment of suspense toward the end that strikes fear into
the audience and plunges the theater into an unearthly silence. Police Inspector
David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) closes his mind and the case after a few years,
leaving Graysmith and fellow journalist Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) as the
surviving searchers. Avery is a dissolute fellow, both smart and jaded, who is
surrendering slowing to his addictions.
These three,
along with a large and sometimes confusing cast of characters, are uniformly
good and wise in their restraint given the extremes that might tempt them. The
subject matter is tabloid stuff and never once does director David Fincher
let the movie go there. In a small but meaty role, Phillip Baker Hall creates a
marvelous handwriting expert, reminding us that America is peppered with sub
cultures filled with passionate people. The actors don’t play to the balcony.
Instead, they risk slowing the movie down by recreating the exacting toil of
journalists and police who must deal only with hard evidence rather than with
circumstance or guesswork.
Robert
Graysmith, apparently in frustration at not being able to solve the case, wrote
the book from which the movie is adapted. Jake Gyllenhaal is entirely credible
in portraying Graysmith’s frustration right up to and including the moment when
he stares into the eyes of the man he thinks is the killer. For those of you who
hate violent movies, remember that the graphics of it are compressed into the
early scenes. The rest of it is a finely acted tale of committed people
searching for resolution.
Copyright (c) Illusion