Merrick Morton, SMPSPZodiac
Rating: 3.5/5
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Edwards
Now playing: Creve Coeur 12
The Zodiac killer plagued the San Francisco Bay Area for 10 months, but “Zodiac,” the new crime thriller from director David Fincher, hardly plagues at all. A ruminative thriller, it is a study of the impact of an elusive criminal on the people trying to catch him. Much of the film, which is heavy in muted greens and faded yellows, is a fairly well-rounded, starkly startling piece of cinema. However, by the tail end of the second hour those colors start to weigh heavier on the eye, and the film drags a bit. An anticlimactic third act is often a problem for scrupulously factual films about killers who were never caught.
Watching this real-life killer wreak havoc on all those involved with him – cops, reporters, victims and the entire city – isn’t quite like watching every other real-life killer wreak similar havoc. Many films have been made about the subject, and about this very killer, including “Dirty Harry,” a portion of which the film cleverly shows in overt acknowledgement. “Zodiac” does set itself apart in a number of fairly notable ways.
Fincher brings an on-and-off voyeuristic quality, setting the camera a number of times on a moving object while the world seems to turn around it. He evinces the same stylistic clarity, if not the same soiled-around-the-edges atmosphere, that made “Se7en” a cult favorite, especially in the unsettling murder scenes. Most of these scenes are excessively violent, however finely crafted, and their impact is more unsettling than necessary.
“Zodiac’s” cast is a veritable who’s who of white guys in ’70s-style suits. Jake Gyllenhaal is a slouched, quiet and completely believable Robert Graysmith, the cartoonist for the San Francisco chronicle who becomes obsessed with, and literally writes the book on, the Zodiac killer. The rest of the cast, which includes Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Brian Cox, Anthony Edwards and Dermot Mulroney, are all quite good, especially Downey Jr., who is wobbly drunk for a good portion of his screen time, heavy-lidded and endearing.
Unfortunately, despite the great ability of director, cinematographer (Harris Savides, who’s got an eye) and cast, the film manages to fall just short of its high ambitions, thanks to the lengthy d‚nouement. Spotted with a number of truly suspenseful scenes, “Zodiac” has its moments, and quite a lot of them, but with its audience limited to Zodiac and true-crime fanatics, it is doubtful it will make any kind of killing at the box office.