Certification. 15
Director. David Fincher
Cast. Brian Cox, John Carroll Lynch, Robert Downey Jr, Anthony Edwards, Jake Gyllenhaal, Elias Koreas, Dermot Mulroney, Mark Ruffalo, Chloë Sevigny.
Rating. 81%
For several years during the 1960s and 1970s, one of the world's few self-named serial killers terrorised the San Francisco Bay area of Northern California. Following each brutal murder, the killer openly taunted both the police department and various journalists by sending letters to the local press, proclaiming to be the 'Zodiac.'
David Fincher's Zodiac is an understated, slow-burn epic that spans a 30-year period from the 1960s to the 1990's, and like the real-life murders on which it was based, Zodiac is as perplexing, divisive and disturbing to this day.
On the one hand, Zodiac is a straight-laced newspaper drama about a crime reporter, Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr) and a cartoonist, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) at The San Francisco Chronicle who become obsessed with the Zodiac killings. Director David Fincher is not afraid to overload the audience with information; a maelstrom of facts, leads and dead ends, results in a film that portrays authentic investigative journalism in the mould of films like All The President's Men, State Of Play and Spotlight. On the other hand, Zodiac is a police procedural film focussing on the San Francisco homicide detectives, Inspector David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and Inspector William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) assigned to track down the killer. A storyline every bit as engrossing as The French Connection, Manhunter and Heat.
Zodiac strikes the perfect balance, both stories coexist in perfect harmony with each other, making for an atmospheric, riveting and compelling examination of one of the most unsettling unsolved mysteries in modern history.
Transposing the Zodiac killings to the big screen was never going to be a routine endeavour. Despite the publicity and notoriety surrounding the heinous attacks, and the rigour in which the investigation was handled, in reality, the breaks in the case came infrequently, staccato and often in isolation. There was never a clear, linear progression when it came to the case. Fincher, therefore, makes the decision to bring the story down to character-level and produces a film where the audience essentially follows information as its traded and moved between the main stakeholders. The focus is primarily on the investigation of the Zodiac killings - from both the journalists and the law enforcement perspective - and how the investigation fundamentally effects the four main characters. In Robert Graysmith's case, this is obsession.
Zodiac is not a serial killer film. Unlike Se7en or The Silence Of The Lambs, the Zodiac murders aren't lurid, celebrated or artful. The murders are chilling and painfully brutal. Elevated by the performances of the supporting cast that play the murder victims (Ciara Hughes, Lee Norris, Pell James and Patrick Scott Lewis), who despite brief appearances manage to portray well-developed characters.
David Fincher may have made better films - Se7en or The Social Network - but Zodiac has substance. A confident and mature investigative thriller that may be the director's film that is most appreciated and revered in years to come.
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