Not Se7en and Fighting Club

Rating: 7/10 (11 October 2009)

A serial killer movie based on Robert Graysmith's non-fiction book, Zodiac, is directed by David Fincher who has directed several exciting movies including Se7en and Fighting Club. The serial killer, calling himself Zodiac, appeared in North California in late 1960's and killed four men and three women. The case has never been solved, and it has been an open file by the California Department of Justice since 1969. How to tell a story of unsolved case? The movie focused on people who tried to solve the case. Two main groups were pursuing this case, including people from San Francisco Chronicle, a crime reporter Paul Avery(Robert Downey Jr.) and a political cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), and people from San Francisco police, detectives Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and his partner Bill Armstrong (Anthony Edwards). Since the case has never been totally solved, the movie was about a story how this case changed men's life. Yeas passed and many people's careers changed. Avery left the Chronicle and Armstrong quited the homicide division. Toschi was also demoted. The only one who still investigated was Graysmith. He was obsessed by this case, even if he lost his job and wife and kids. In the end, he claimed he discovered who was the killer, a suspect who was innocent because his DNA did not match the sample from the Zodiac letters. Eventually, he finished his book, Zodiac. The case was still unsolved.
If you like David Fincher's Se7en or Fighting Club, you may feel disappointed in the end. The story is not exciting at all. Most time the movie describes how to detect the case and then why it does not work. At the beginning, Zodiac sends some code to Chronicle. Graysmith solves it, but it does not help to solve the case. The killing scenes are not so bloody. There is no police and killer's car-pursuing either. For those who get used the traditional Hollywood detective movies, Zodiac is not their type. So how's else we can see in this movie? More it is about the real life. Some cannot handle the pressure and lost himself in alcohol (Avery). Some decides leaving the position and comes back to family (Armstrong). For those who are still pursuing the case, they rather believe what they believe rather than the evidences. Everyone in this case needs an exit, or a killer no matter it is true or not, to make himself leave. Here shows one problem that the scientific identification was not so reliable in 1960's. Too many evidences may distract the investigation. Another problem is the cooperation between polices in different cities. The bureaucrat defers the evidences communicating around the area. Basically, the movie handled the mood of reality quite well. The real life has a lot of disappointment, imperfect, and frustration. The whole investigation is like Kafka's The Castle; no one can get the end.The movie is quite long (157 minutes) and the non- exciting plot may make people sleepy. However, once you can be patient, the movie will show some truth of the humanity.