The next four non-AFI Netflix queue entries take a puzzling leap into thrillers (hey, I don't remember how I filled up my queue, I just did it). The first two are David Fincher thrillers. Of Fincher's catalog, I've only seen a few films, and I'm not sure I've seen enough of them to the point that I can definitively call myself a Fincher fan, though he has got some definite potential. I also don't feel qualified, based on what I have seen, to discuss any movie that might be called his "masterpiece" (or whether he has one still in the making). I've seen Alien 3, which I didn't really like (and neither did he, so I don't count it against him). I've seen Se7en and loved it, and want to own it, and I think I saw part of Fight Club, but I can only say I think I saw it because I might have been, er, um, under the influence at the time and can't really say one way or another. It was recommended by some friends who also recommended I try certain beverages. What can I say? I don't remember much of it or if I even liked it. Fight Club is on my queue somewhere, though, and I'll see it soon (again) enough, but until that time, Zodiac constituted the contents of my weekly red envelope because with all of the pre-release hype, I quickly became interested in the subject of it, even though it was heavily compared to Se7en. I think such a comparison was unfair, since the only common thread is a serial killer with a penchant for disturbing clues and especially since Se7en is a fictional story, while Zodiac is something of a docudrama, recreating actual historical events…but I digress.
When Zodiac was released, it dredged up all of the back-story in the news again about the infamous Zodiac killer and piqued the interest of a whole new generation of people, myself included. Prior to the film's release, I knew nothing of this particular serial killer, and then as various news outlets began dissecting the facts again in the wake of the movie, I grew interested, or, at least, interested enough to see the film. So, I speak as someone only vaguely familiar with the original story. I was not alive during Zodiac's heyday, and most of the facts I've learned have now officially come from the film, except for the few bits and pieces I remembered from the news stories a year ago - and that was mostly stuff about the codes and letters Zodiac left- and whatever I've read since finishing the film almost a week ago.
Fincher and company tell the story of the Zodiac killer much like a Law and Order episode, only with better photography and performances. The film opens on a young couple, parked and presumably ready for some alone time, in a car on a back road in the San Francisco area (Vallejo technically). A strange car pulls up, drives off, and then returns. The driver gets out, shining a flashlight into the couple's vehicle and blinding them from discerning his identity. Suddenly, the driver shoots each member of the couple, leaving them for dead. The boy survives, but the girl dies. Afterward, three newspapers, including The San Francisco Chronicle, receive letters and a cryptogram instructing the papers to print these letters and ciphers on the front page. In the letters, the murderer takes credit for the murder of this couple and of another couple one year earlier. These first incidents set off a chain of events that terrorized San Francisco and its surrounds for the next several years, as someone identifying themselves as the "Zodiac" commits four proven homicides/attempted homicides and sends letters to newspapers and police, taunting them and demanding press publication of his letters and cryptic codes. Robert Downey, Jr. plays Paul Avery, a Chronicle reporter who initially shrugs Zodiac off until he breaks a story about possible earlier murders attributable to him and receives a threat on his own life; Mark Ruffalo plays detective David Toschi, who along with partner Armstrong (Anthony Edwards), are assigned to investigate the murders. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Robert Graysmith, initially a cartoonist at the Chronicle, who takes obsessive interest in the Zodiac mystery and writes a book attempting to solve it. It's his book on which the movie is based.
That is but a cursory plot summary for something as complex and chilling as the story behind the unsolved Zodiac murders. All in all, I really liked this movie. In fact, I almost loved it, but there was something that prevented me from crossing that line into five-star territory.
I have to say that, days later, Zodiac is sort of haunting me, but I don't know if I should credit that to the movie or to the puzzling and frustrating nature of the true story behind the Zodiac. I'm going to take the position that the movie should receive at least partial credit. Fincher and his screenwriters, in an intelligent and thought-provoking way, attempted to lay out the events comprising the Zodiac murders and the ensuing investigations in a straightforward, objective manner, much, like I said, as a Law and Order episode might. And while Law and Order normally bores me, this film did nothing of the kind. First, it was well shot all around, using sophisticated cinematography and Fincher's trademark sense of visual style to really hook the viewer and reel him or her in. The photography, visual effects, use of motion either from the camera's perspective or from the background of the shot, were all very effective in not only carefully presenting the proven facts but also in making these historical situations exciting, even intense. I've never found a crime procedural so interesting or thrilling, and while the Zodiac murders may have had that intrigue about them by the very manner in which they were conducted and then broadcast via the news, they probably would have lost some of their allure without the suave, even hip visual presentation that Fincher and his photographers used.
The performances were also very good and believable. I think the best performances belong to Ruffalo and Edwards because they seemed the most genuine to me, being directly involved in an investigation that turned out to be impossible, frustrating, and heartbreaking in some ways. Edwards was pitch-perfect, but it was Ruffalo and the passion he portrayed as Mr. Toschi (with whom he consulted for the part) that was the center of the entire film. Oh sure, Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey, Jr. did a great job, but I think the public consciousness of the time and in the wake of the Zodiac murders was best reflected in the two cops' characters and their actors' performances. They're what made the story resonate for me, someone who was not alive contemporary to the Zodiac's heyday.
I also thought the soundtrack was pretty awesome. The song choices were chilling at times and at other times perfectly captured the late 60s, early 70s vibe. Also, it was, in a disturbing way, refreshing to see a film about that time period that didn't include any mention of the Vietnam War or explore the free love sensibilities. The art direction was fascinating to me, from the newsroom (with only manual typewriters!) to strategically placed items, like movie posters of Dirty Harry or an old-style vending machine. These elements were obviously employed with great attention to detail, and, of course, I love those kinds of details.
The problem I have with Zodiac, however, arises from a much more basic, more foundational level. I was talking to my mom about this movie, who watched it with interest, since she was alive at the time of the actual events. She started that conversation with: "Weren't you disappointed?" I asked her what she meant. She said: "Well, we never found out who the Zodiac is!" I told her, well, of course not, because they never the caught the guy; the investigation is still open, and the case is still unsolved. She asked: "Then what was the point?"
I pondered that a minute because that was a valid question. What was the point, other than to dredge up details of a disturbed killer's morbid fascinations and attention-whore tendencies, possibly in the quest to make himself a legend, which is what the film helped to validate, at least in a step-in-the-right-direction manner? I think the answer to that question gets lost because the focus of the film becomes convoluted in the story being told. Personally, what disappoints me about the movie is not so much the fact that we never truly find out who the Zodiac is, since we never can. The authorities don't really know, so why should we? Instead, it comes from the fact that the film begins as a procedural, providing the viewer objective facts, descriptions, forensic evidence, testimonials, and focus on the investigators. The viewer is presented with various suspects and persons of interest, some more likely than others, but all circumstantially involved, without drawing any firm conclusions, due to the fact that some were ruled out under handwriting analyses and such, as this all took place before the marvel of DNA testing. The film's focus then reverts to the Graysmith character and his obsession with solving the mystery himself in pursuit of his book. So, basically, the film is presented first as a procedural crime thriller/mystery and then overlaps with a character study (seemingly) of Graysmith. I don't find anything amiss with trying to present two stories as one overlapping tale, but the problems lie in the fact that the overlap was so disjointed that both stories ended in a dissatisfying conclusion. The Graysmith character is in the background for the first half of the movie; obviously, the filmmakers want to show, cursorily, how Graysmith even got involved in writing his book to begin with, but it's done with truly short shrift. We don't really get any information into his personality or his motivations or his thought processes, except as it relates to Zodiac, and all we really know is that he becomes obsessed with trying to discern Zodiac's true identity because he is drawn in by Zodiac's various cryptograms. We learn only bits of personal information, such as that he is divorced with one kid, and that he, eventually, meets his future second ex-wife, who was played by Chloe Sevigny (since he also divorced her, which I only learned from Wikipedia after watching the film). We also only see him tagging after Avery and talking about Zodiac ad nauseum with no real clue as to why this particular mystery nags at him so.
The second half of the movie is where Graysmith's character then becomes the focal point for our Zodiac timeline, approximately around the time Zodiac's activity finally tapered off. So, we follow his investigation, as he pumps former investigators for information and jimmies his way into several prohibited police files. We learn that his obsession overtakes his life and alienates him from his wife and children, but we still don't know why this has become such a magnet of interest for him. Maybe, he never really had that answer himself, but I find that doubtful, since he has had years to mull it over, even if he did not exactly know then. We're also given incomplete information as to what happens to Graysmith in the end, other than the fact that he writes his book.
What's more, Graysmith wrote his book because he thought he had solved the mystery. He latched onto one of the suspects, a likely candidate to be sure, but one that has been ruled out repeatedly – first, through handwriting analysis and, more recently, through DNA evidence. Plus, the suspect in question is now dead.
The bottom line is that this film would have worked better for me if the Zodiac had been solely the procedural portion, presenting our line of suspects and allowing the viewer to draw his/her own conclusion rather than forcing Graysmith's problematic results into the viewer's consciousness when he was never really qualified to make that assessment. Or, it would have worked better if the film had put Graysmith in the foreground throughout and examined his motivations more closely. Or, since the police investigation was the more exciting and interesting part of the film, it would have been more effective to leave that part structured as it was but make Graysmith more of a prevalent character and flush out his story more and give it some closure other than a mere footnote. He is still alive, and he is still talking about Zodiac, after all. More story construction would not be too difficult to come by, and it crossed my mind watching the film that I wonder what it would look like if a psychologist assessed Graysmith because his zeal for this disturbing case unsettled me almost as much as the Zodiac murders themselves.
All in all, though, Zodiac was a fine film that kept me engaged from beginning to end, and though I was not satisfied with the conclusions being drawn by the film, I think it is a worthwhile one to watch because it gives the viewer enough to work with if, perhaps, they would want to figure it out themselves. Plus, it was all presented in a really cool, visually interesting way. I find myself erring toward a 7.5 on the ratings scale, between shaky but entertaining and very good but minor flaws. It would have been a straight 7 if not for the good elements like the performances and the visual presentation and the soundtrack because I honestly felt that the focus of the picture was so convoluted, that it left me feeling somewhat disappointed. Others have enjoyed it in its entirety, though, so it's still recommendable. As to the test, I'm on the fence. I actually want to watch it again before I make that determination because the first half to two-thirds of the movie is really good and inspired some interest from me in the unsolved Zodiac mystery. It provokes thought and interest in its subject, so, to that end and despite my heretofore mentioned disappointment, the film still sort of worked.