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Scorpio's rising

A good, if disappointing, look at a serial killer
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By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
June 13th, 2007 issue

Zodiac

Directed by David Fincher
With Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey, Jr., Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox, Chloe Sevigny, Candy Clark and Elias Koteas

COURTESY PHOTO
Portrait of a serial killer. Jake Gyllenhaal in David Fincher's Zodiac.
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As shown in Se7en, David Fincher is a master of films about obsession and aberrant behavior. He’s also, unlike the likes of Eli Roth, an expert at suggesting brutality (unnervingly so) without splashing about in a bloodbath like a twisted child.
From the fictitious serial killer of Se7en, Fincher has moved on to a study of a real psychopath, the infamous Zodiac Killer who stalked Northern California in the late 1960s and early ’70s. And, while this film is as atmospheric and moody as Fincher’s famed earlier film (as well as his Fight Club, and the grossly underestimated The Game), it suffers from many structural and script problems.
The story is a substantial one. A mysterious murderer begins thrill-killing in the bedroom communities of San Francisco before arriving in the city itself. After his second attack, he announces his presence by sending the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner strange letters complete with cryptograms.
Fincher follows the story primarily from the Chronicle’s side, where the paper’s ace crime hack, Paul Avery (Robert Downey, Jr.), and editorial cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), become attached to the story (the film is actually based on Graysmith’s best-selling book on the case).
Once the killer enters the city limits, SFPD investigators David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) in turn become enmeshed in the madness. Before long, these personalities surrounding the murders will begin to clash, as each man begins to take the solving of the case as a personal mission.
The case was never solved, though one suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch), still seems the most likely candidate. But there was never enough evidence to charge him, even though the Zodiac was a sloppy killer. Three victims survived his predations to make statements and offer up features for a composite portrait.
Fincher’s film almost succeeds brilliantly. But shortcomings to the plot bog down the film’s momentum.
His staging of the Zodiac’s second murder, which took place in Vallejo, is a perfect piece of suspense, as the two victims, parked at the local lover’s lane, are menaced by an unseen man in a dark car. The car roars off, leaving the two relieved. But then we hear the screech of tires in the distance, and the car apparently turning around. We then see the car’s headlights speeding back into the frame. Fincher uses the sound of that ominous braking car throughout the film, allowing it to become as jarring as a shriek of strings from a Bernard Herrmann score.
Fincher recreates the San Francisco of the ’60s and ’70s meticulously, complete with a dynamic time-lapse construction of the Transamerican Pyramid Building (there should have been more of such narrative time bridging). And, although every part of the city’s culture that pertained to the case is brought in to season the film (Chronicle writers Herb Caen and Armistead Maupin played supporting roles at the time, as did the Zodiac-inspired Clint Eastwood revenge drama, Dirty Harry), Fincher fails to place the case in a larger historical context, which actually weakens the story.
You wouldn’t know from this film that the Zodiac Killer bookended the infamous Rolling Stones concert at Altamont, the rise of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the assassinations of Harvey Milk, George Moscone and Congressman Leo Ryan, which precipitated the Jonestown Massacre, and a host of other disasters orbiting San Francisco. By ignoring the larger history of the time, Fincher misses an opportunity to accentuate how myopically driven the men dedicated to solving the case are.
Graysmith, Avery and the two inspectors are truly obsessed with the Zodiac Killer, yet Fincher fails to explicate the reasons. In the case of Avery (Downing’s wonderfully soured dandy), he seems to go off the rails after receiving a personal threat from the murderer. Obviously for the police (in strong performances from both Ruffalo and Edwards), it’s their job. But Graysmith’s obsessiveness seems completely unmotivated. It’s also difficult to believe that this earnest naif (as played by Gyllenhaal) would be capable of tying his own shoes, let alone eventually writing a book.
The supporting cast is impeccable, particularly Lynch’s casual madness as Allen. The rest of the cast is a fine zodiac of stars: Brian Cox, Chloe Sevigny, Candy Clark, Elias Koteas and Philip Baker Hall.
Zodiac’s various parts make it more than an interesting failure. Yet the whole remains disappointing when compared to Fincher’s earlier films.

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


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