The TGIF Movie Review: Zodiac
February 15th, 2008 by Matt
It’s not that I kowtow to David Fincher, but I do tend to dig his flicks: Fight Club, Panic Room and The Game, which includes my favorite not-safe-for-work piece of dialog ever (just click here… it’s the third section of quotations down). Zodiac is Fincher’s latest piece of cinematic brilliance, and this one stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chloë Sevigny. The film loosely tells the story of the Zodiac killer, a serial murderer who terrified San Francisco residents during the late ’60s and early ’70s, and who mystified the authorities, intensionally and successfully.
But the movie isn’t really about the brutality of the murders (and they are brutal) or the murders themselves. And the film’s not really about who actually committed the murders (though we’re led to believe who it likely is/was). This film is really about Robert Graysmith (played with an unaffected texture by Jake Gyllenhaal), a cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle when the Zodiac killer began sending cryptic letters to the area’s newspapers. These hand-written letters include admissions to certain killings, matter-of-fact explanations of why he enjoyed killing people, demands that newspapers print some of his letters (which they do), and coded messages, most of which were never cracked.
But here’s a sampling of one of the few ciphers figured out: “I like killing people because it is so much fun. It is more fun than killing wild game in the forest, because man is the most dangerous animal of all … I will not give you my name because you will try to slow down or stop my collecting of slaves.” You get the rated-R idea.
After several years of letters received, unsolved murders, and unsuccessful leads, the police and reporters essentially give up trying to crack the case. But Graysmith can’t let go. He obsesses, quits his job, and starts tracking down leads let go years and years ago, crossing over several different police jurisdictions, interviewing cops, neighbors, surviving victims, and reporters. In the end, he writes two true-crime books, Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked: the Identity of America’s Most Elusive Serial Killer. But this all comes with heavy prices.
And so this is a film about secrets kept and secrets we reveal, about safe and unsafe obsessions, about deaths and the ways we lead our little lives. Zodiac is a piece of gripping film-making that leaves your mouth agape and your mind wanting more.
Enjoy….
P.S. I can’t vouch for the validity of this website, but it might be worth checking out after seeing the film.
Share This
Add this to your favorites