Zodiac

→ in
Tools    





I couldn't remember all through the film who this actor was, and when I whispered to my son "who is that guy, it's really annoying me" he said "it's the one from the beginning of the film seven hours ago" ...Yeah it's a long and very detailed film of the investigation of the so called Zodiac Killer who murdered five known victims during the 1960s. He remained at large in the publics imagination due to a series of letters and phone calls to newspapers. Of course some of these were by copycat nutjobs, but the allure of the serial killer story is always intriguing.

Fincher has made a serious film here which may not appeal to people who're looking for another Se7en. It's not moodily brooding, or lit in beautiful tones, neither does it make the hairs on the back of your neck creep up, but what it does do is explain a whole case from beginning to end, a fairly unusual occurrence in our quickfix film times. No wonder it lasts 158 minutes, and no wonder Fincher insisted he couldn't make it any shorter and still tell the story. This he succeeds in, but this may be at the cost of some viewers patience or attention span. The minutiae of an investigation won't appeal to everyone particularly as the main protagonist, cartoonist Robert Graysmith is played with such austerity by Jake Gyllenhaal.

In the beginning Graysmith - who also wrote the book- follows the case from the sidelines in his job as cartoonist on the San Francisco Chronicle, but as the years go on and the cases are unsolved, he becomes obsessed with finding the killer. His determined compulsion leads him to investigate and put together details that the police have missed. This isn't surprising as the victims have been murdered in different counties, and there's hardly any what we'd know of today as 'joined up policing' . In fact some police staff are defensive in their protection of the evidence they have gathered, making the job of lead Police Inspectors Toschi and Armstrong very difficult.[img][/img]

Gyllenhaal and Downey


The films study of obsession is interesting, highlighted particulary by Graysmith's slide from family man, from the unwise involvement of his children in reading clues, to eventually allowing his family to fade from his life. Mark Ruffalo shines onscreen as the careworn and harrassed lead detective David Toschi who also suffers the frustration of the unsolved case. Mark Ruffalo's a great character actor - getting better as he gets older imo. So you don't get completely bogged down in misery, Fincher gives us Toschi bearing more than a passing resemblance to Peter Falk's Colombo, and for a lighter touch we have Robert Downey jnr giving the journalist Paul Avery a loucheness that'll make you smile.

Fincher is hell bent on giving the viewer every technicality from the case that it could possibly cram into it's 158 minutes, and in a lesser directors hands it could've been messy and hard to follow, but no, relentless it may be but you're taken along never losing the plot.

I absolutely LOVED the period detail. It must've cost a bloody fortune to make all those 1960s and 70s sets/clothes/hairstyles - the attention to detail was formidable and the atmosphere fantastic, the clarity of the light in the film is excellent too. Can't wait for the dvd so I can look at the backgrounds in a little more detail instead of having to concentrate on what was going on!

Enyoyed it immensely, specially when I remembered on the way home that 'that guy' was Norm Gunderson from Fargo



I love Zodiac. My friends found it boring and tedious, but I think it's an oxygen tank in space - full of life, a breath of fresh air. On top of that, it has Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr. and even an appearance by Brian Cox. Of the few recent films I've seen so far this year, it's my favorite. I had a big interest in trying to figure out who the killer was. I've picked up the book it's based on but have only got a few chapters in so far.



Standing in the Sunlight, Laughing
I liked the first and third hours, but the middle one was a bit too much detail about things that didn't really pan out. Raffalo's character should not have had so much screen time, IMO.

christine~ nice write up. If you want to flesh that out a little and rate the film, I'll be happy to add it to the Reviews section.



I have to say that this is a very deep and meticulously plotted film that deserves an award for simply being an ambitious investigation into an infamous killer who goes by the nickname 'Zodiac'.

Way into the film, Robert Downey Jr's arsehole of a journalist says, "he offed a few people, made a few notes, thats it". So, why would one of America's most notable filmmakers make a film based on this guy's killing spree? I'll tell you guys why, because of the effect he had on his investigators. The film is concerned with the story of how these groups of men (Gyllenhall, Ruffalo and Downey Jr) gave up their entire time and lives for the hunt of the Zodiac'.

Now for some this is a damn good scenario to show some great drama, but for this viewer? Nah, I am not going to lie to you boys..i was bored throughout most of Zodiac. It doesn't make me unintelligent or unsophisticated, just basically means that I couldn't relate to or symphatise with a bunch of men who wasted their time on a killer who, quiet frankly, wasn't all that masterful when it came to commiting his crimes.

However, the main problem with Zodiac is that Fincher (a renowed technical director notable for strong distinctive visual style) does not bring himself to get all, well, y'know...'Fincher' on the film. More on this later.



Great review, it has just started in my town, so i hope to see it this week
__________________
Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha



The Fabulous Sausage Man
Works well as a police procedural, doesn't work so well as a psychological study.



Today is the 10-year anniversary of Zodiac's release. Here's a good article published in honor of the occasion:

Pop culture anniversaries tend to be occasions for gauzy nostalgia or vigorous defenses of the places various pieces of art ought to have in the canon. I don’t feel any need to defend David Fincher’s “Zodiac,” one of the greatest movies yet released this century, which arrived in theaters ten years ago today. And I don’t feel warm and fuzzy about it either. The great thing about “Zodiac,” which tracks the search for the serial killer of the same name, is the way it adds an eerie, record-scratch of a scream below gloomy moment when the promises of the 1960s seemed to be curdling, and the sense of malaise and decline that would characterize the 1970s was setting in. “Zodiac” is a movie about how uncertainty and institutional failure will drive you mad, and as a result, it’s more relevant than ever.
Such a good movie. Thinking of rewatching it again soon.



Great film. #2 Fincher after SE7EN for me. I was pretty obsessed with the Zodiac Killer in my early to mid teens so i knew about alot of the people involved but i don't think i'd have liked it any less if i hadn't. Should rewatch it myself soon too, only watched it once.



I was pretty obsessed with the Zodiac Killer in my early to mid teens so i knew about alot of the people involved but i don't think i'd have liked it any less if i hadn't.
If anything, that's even more impressive: it's a thriller where many of the people watching already know of the basic outcome. The degree of difficulty on that is pretty steep.



Zodiac is the perfect procedural. I tewatched it last year and love it even more. Still slightly behing Social Network I think, but it's close.
__________________
Letterboxd



Great film. #2 Fincher after SE7EN for me. I was pretty obsessed with the Zodiac Killer in my early to mid teens so i knew about alot of the people involved but i don't think i'd have liked it any less if i hadn't. Should rewatch it myself soon too, only watched it once.
^^

I used to read a lot about quite a few serial killers. I still seem to read/watch a lot of serial killer/murder stuff.



^^

I used to read a lot about quite a few serial killers. I still seem to read/watch a lot of serial killer/murder stuff.
I don't really anymore but i listen to podcasts about it from time to time, it does get a bit overwhelming after a while though. Me and Sean have a True Crime Thread here - http://www.movieforums.com/community...ad.php?t=46029

If you ever want to post about that stuff.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
I recently lent this to my friend.....he said it was good.

Just good?


We're not friends anymore.
__________________
"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews



Little Devil's Avatar
MC for the Great Underground Circus
It's a cool flick.
__________________
You're more advanced than a cockroach, have you ever tried explaining yourself to one of them?




Two years before Zodiac, Capote depicted Truman Capote making a fuss about possibly not having an ending for his seminal true crime novel In Cold Blood. Robert Graysmith, on whose non-fiction books Zodiac is based, had no such qualms, nor did director David Fincher. The comparison may be unfair; Graysmith is no Capote (but then, who is?), and In Cold Blood isn’t a whodunit – though technically neither is Zodiac, since after more than two hours we don’t learn who [has] done it so much as who-a-very-small-group-of-people-think-done-it. In a nutshell, this is a movie about a hunch.

The film would work better (and that’s not to say it doesn’t work at all) if it were, like Capote, about a man obsessed with a crime and those who have committed it – especially considering that the Zodiac killings constitute arguably the most famous unsolved murder case in American history; unfortunately, Fincher is what James Randi would have called a true believer, and Zodiac leaves little doubt that the director is as persuaded that Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch) was the Zodiac as he is that Herman Mankiewicz singlehandedly wrote the script for Citizen Kane.

Zodiac is a better movie than Mank, however, because Fincher was more in possession of his faculties in 2007 than in 2020; accordingly, the former film makes a more coherent and convincing case for its thesis than does the latter (and even this we can attribute to the credibility of a very deep roster of skilled supporting players in addition to the rock-solid core of leading men-cum-character actors in the most prominent roles), although it still boils down to a ‘what if?’ scenario.

So flimsy in fact is the entire house of cards that the story ends – or rather comes to a halt (lacking, as noted above, a logical conclusion) – on a fallacious note: “Just because you can't prove it, doesn't mean it's not true.” It’d be a lot more reassuring if you could, though.