Effective, creepy, and tantalising...

Rating: 8/10 (3 December 2007)

"...it's then when the Hurdy-Gurdy Man comes singin songs of love..."
Two teenagers shot in a car at an isolated "lover's lane", Southern California, 1969. No witnesses. No motives. No suspects.
So begins Robert Graysmith's account of the infamous unsolved Zodiac case that gripped America in the late 60's, early 70's, and indeed still fascinates many today. I count myself among those "many". And so begins David Fincher's remarkable adaptation of Graysmith's titular novel. The film will haunt you long after the end credits have rolled off the screen and the room fades to black.
Immersive, atmospheric, and documentary-real, Zodiac is an achievement and a half for Fincher. Although the point can be argued, I believe this is his masterpiece. The first viewing blew me away. It's amazing how well you, as an audience member, are suffused into this world. You can almost reach out and touch things on screen, it feels that real.
Fincher and his various casting directors have an uncanny knack for picking the perfect people for certain roles, and in Zodiac this talent is on fine display. The three leads are amazing, Mark Ruffalo as the bull-dog Detective Dave Toschi, Jake Gyllenhaal as the nerdy cartoonist turned amateur-sleuth Robert Graysmith, and Robert Downey Jr as the hard-drinking, cynical crime reporter Paul Avery.
The film dives straight in - beginning with the second "official" Zodiac attack on Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau (the one just before the first infamous "Zodiac letter" claiming credit for it) which left Darlene dead but miraculously Michael survived several gunshots wounds, though strangely was never shown any suspect photos until years after the investigation was deemed "unsolved", and relegated to the "cold case" files. In a scene fraught with tension and mystery, we watch the doomed teenagers park their car, we wonder does she really know the guy in that other car? We plead silently with them as the car seems to speed away, but then with a screech of tyres starts back toward them... "Start the car and just go! Get out of there, now!" But of course, it plays out just like the frighteningly matter-of-fact police report: "the suspect exited his vehicle, walked to the passenger side window of the parked car, and without a word, began firing..." The case captures Graysmith's attention immediately, however it's not until another murder on Dave Toschi's beat (cabbie Paul Stine) that the dogged detective and his partner, played by Anthony Edwards, get involved.
The film plays out much to the tune of Graysmith's novel of the same name, ie it leaves out a LOT of stuff about the case, and focuses very closely on prime suspect Arthur Leigh Allen, a man both contemporary and modern criminal investigators and profilers, not to mention DNA evidence, seem to rule out as the real killer.
However, that's not to say they're not wrong. Who knows? The real Allen died shortly before the cops could speak with him after he was identified by Magaeu as "the man who shot me", so I guess we really will never know.
That's the dividing line of this film, I think. Fincher has done a marvellous job of capturing the immense frustration people felt (especially the investigating cops) when, time and again, the Zodiac evaded capture after brazen and brutal crimes, not to mention the taunting and insulting letters he constantly bombarded the police and media with. Nowhere is this more painfully rendered than in the scene where Dave Toschi sits in his car at the intersection where Paul Stine was murdered YEARS earlier, just waiting there. We get the feeling he does it a lot, just sits in his car there, and waits, and hopes with that steady sinking feeling growing in his stomach. He sighs, starts the car, and drives away, but we know he'll be back.
So you'll either relish that feeling of frustration, or you'll hate the movie for it. Personally, I enjoyed it very much, and was very inspired to go and find out more about the case. I challenge you not to want to know more, as the film opens a few doors it never quite closes, and I was excited to "fill in the blanks" so to speak, by delving into a bit of amateur-sleuthing of my own.
Like the infamous British Jack the Ripper case, this is a whodunit with endless avenues to pursue, and literally hundreds of theories as to who committed the murders, and why. Some are laughable, though most are really interesting and some are quite plausible.
I've watched this film 3 times now, and each time I've noticed subtle things I missed on previous viewings. Very watchable, though slow paced and does require a level of concentration.
Highly recommended. The "thinking person's" thriller. Enjoy.
Footnote: One reviewer commented that it was "distasteful" of the film to try and pin the crimes on a dead man (ie Arthur Leigh Allen). Um...come again? It should be remembered the "dead man" in question was a convicted child molester. Regardless of whether he was also the Zodiac, IMO he deserves no sympathy, even in death.