How to Depict a Real-to-Life Curse

Rating: 9/10 (21 June 2015)

A deranged killer taunts you to solve his gruesome cipher. If you take a stab at it, an invisible evil takes over, potentially wrecking both your professional and personal life.
The movie "Zodiac" tells this true story more as an historical crime drama than "mystery/who-done-it." Since the original "Dirty Harry" movie was also based on the Zodiac murders, there is even an ongoing irony between its controversial and sensational brute force and the heroes in "Zodiac," who steadfastly and patiently adhere to a respect for due process that leads to their bitter ruin (punctuated deftly by a scene depicting an actual SFPD screening of "Dirty Harry," although the filmmakers very deliberately keep Clint Eastwood's image and voice from appearing on screen).
David Fincher directs, originally hired so he could recreate the dark and creepy look of some of his previous films—with success. Otherwise, the script by Jamie Vanderbilt (nephew of famous etiquette guru Gloria) presumably adheres closely to Robert Graysmith's true crime books (I haven't read them yet), depicting events I remember as a child growing up in Sacramento.
Because the story is told with real clues, letters, ciphers, handwriting analysis, and dysfunctional police theories, the model film that Vanderbilt, Fincher and producer Brad Fisher wanted to emulate was Alan J. Pakula's "All the President's Men," although in the end this model is generously embellished upon. Serving as such an embellishment, a highly stylized use of music of the day includes Donovan, Vanilla Fudge, and other easily recognizable groups such as Sly and the Family Stone, along with an ambient original score by David Shire, who plays numerous eerie piano solos.
Also overtly stylish are three sequences depicting real crimes, each shot and edited in a style reminiscent of teen thriller films from the 1950s and 60s. These scenes still blend well into the overall stark narrative, which includes several scenes in which the actors simply read the Zodiac letters aloud on and off camera.
Although "Zodiac" appears in this way to be a fairly lean production, it nonetheless cost over $80 million to make. If you look carefully at the vintage cars and how certain scenes were recreated, you might figure out where some of the money was spent. Read the credits to the film and you'll also discover that the filmmakers were actually taking great pains to research the crimes depicted and had hired actual people involved in the true events as consultants.
Not quite upstaging the ever-present invisible evil, friendly chemistry between the actors helps keep us engaged, especially between Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey, Jr., as the journalists, and the two SFPD homicide detectives, played with remarkable understated precision by Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards. Brain Cox portrays the famous Bay Area lawyer Melvin Belli with superb swagger.
Amazingly, the realism of "Zodiac" distracts from remarkable continuity errors that remain hidden inside its twisted momentum. The Chief of Police of the City of Vallejo (played with seamless intensity by Elias Koteas, along with Donal Logue who similarly plays the Napa County detective) actually refers to Solano County as "over the county line" (Vallejo is in Solano County). Even worse is catching yourself believing that Graysmith's first date with his future wife Melanie (played with smart but sexy aplomb by Chloë Savigny) occurred shortly after a meeting at the gun range with his colleague Paul Avery, who then was supposed to have driven at least seven hours to Riverside in a clunker car; met with an anonymous source; collected handwriting samples from the local police; taken another eight-hour drive to Sacramento to have the handwriting analyzed; and managed to call Graysmith back all in one evening before sunrise.
Fincher takes great pains to recreate the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle of that era, including publisher Charles De Young Thieriot (John Terry) and editors Templeton Peck (John Getz) and Al Hyman (Ed Setrakian). Although the nuances here are nowhere nearly as developed as in "All the President's Men," it was good to see veteran actress and once Oscar nominee Candy Clark appearing briefly here and then as a secretary, as well as the crusty canteen operator Shorty (James Carraway).
The passion of the drama still prevails, even if it leaves you wondering why the police in this case could never figure out that if the killer could check out a few books on ciphers from the library, he probably could have found something on handwriting analysis as well (the one thing that foils the police in the end). Still, the facts serving as clues that do eventually solve the puzzle are carefully chosen and revealed, suggesting my original interest was based on the filmmaker's exhaustive research and careful presentation.
At least admire this film, if you don't love it. I nonetheless love its chemistry and clever ways of inserting humor inside an otherwise deeply morbid tale. Just don't try to analyze why it all works as if it was one of Zodiac's ciphers—you'll never be able to crack it.