>>REVIEW
ZODIAC
STARRING Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr.
DIRECTED BY David Fincher
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Upon exiting David Fincher’s new film Zodiac, one word comes to mind – obsession. With a fully fixated screen time of over two hours and 40 minutes, the talented director of Se7en, The Game and Fight Club has now cast his sights on the true-life crime case of the Zodiac killer. Starting with his earliest Halloween shootings in 1966, the film includes an incredibly thorough exploration of the astonishing story’s next thirty-odd years. Sadly, the movie feels about this long as well.
Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Robert Graysmith, the clean-cut San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist who becomes infatuated with the case. He is the true protagonist (as the film is largely based on his books on the subject), yet throughout the first two-thirds, Fincher follows the lives and stories of two other characters as well. Robert Downey Jr. steals every scene he’s in as the cocky but half-cocked reporter Paul Avery, and Mark Ruffalo, as the possessed policeman with puppy-dog eyes David Toshi, inspires both laughs and empathy.
Inevitably, as the film’s lengthy timeline lurches on, other players fade into the background and the focus shifts back to Graysmith. His knowledge of the Zodiac becomes both a blessing and a burden, and as he inches closer to cracking the case, the rest of his world begins to crumble. Gyllenhaal is excellent and is a lot more believable here than in his roles in Brokeback and Jarhead (let’s just forget about Proof).
All in all, Zodiac does many things well — from the scenes of the cynical old newsmen at the Chronicle to the powerful repeated use of Donovan’s classic "Hurdy Gurdy Man." The murders shown are suitably skin crawling, and many third-act scenes will have even seasoned thriller fans spilling their popcorn. Like the settings of his past films, Fincher’s vision of California in the ’60s and ’70s is cynical, stark and gritty, similar in spirit to Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising.
Unfortunately, the film fails in that it simply tries to do too much. There are far too many plot twists, time changes and inconsequential details. In fact, the entire onscreen relationship between Graysmith and Melanie (Chloe Sevigny) could have been chopped. It is commendable to stick so closely to Graysmith’s books and the facts, but as a result, the movie comes off as bloated. The Zodiac killings do provide some fascinating fodder, but perhaps Fincher has let his obsession get the better of him as well. |
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