A good fact-based mystery

Rating: 8/10 (5 March 2007)

Based on Robert Graysmith's novel, this was a really good mystery involving detectives from different districts, a reporter, and a cartoonist. In fact is wasn't really about the killer at all, but more about the obsession of the four main characters as they took years to try an solve the mystery of the infamous Zodiac killer, only to never find enough evidence to ever capture him.
In the late 1960s, a killer calling himself only the Zodiac went on a rampage killing from between six to a possible 100 people through the years. Four men, a cartoonist (Jake Gyllenhaal) a reporter (Robert Downey Junior) and two FBI agents (Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards) took years to discover who the killer was, but he never was caught. There were suspects, but there was never enough evidence to prove anything.
Jake Gyllenhaal played Robert Graysmith. At the beginning of the movie he is more like a secondary character as the story focuses mainly on the two detectives and the reporter as they try to solve the case in their own ways. After years of trying and never able to capture the Zodiac killer, they all let the case fade out. It is during the last half of the movie that Gyllenhaal's character suddenly takes center stage and the other three become secondary. It was a clever trick and one that worked beautifully.
This movie is more about obsession than anything else. It shows how obsession can ruin lives and lead to eminent disaster for those involved. It also shows what some people will do to try and prove something that might not be worth the time anymore.
Zodiac is not the perfect mystery though. It never did explain those calls that Gyllenhaal's character was getting when he was still working on the case in those later years. Were they calls from the Zodiac killer or not? Also I couldn't accept the somewhat upbeat ending which explained what the characters were doing presently after the movie ended. Otherwise, it was a good movie.