ZODIAC

By Rilio Mastrantonio:  I liked “Zodiac”, so let’s work backwards from there. Why did I like it, you may ask? First, the “based on actual case files” thriller keeps viewing attention despite being two hours and fourty minutes long. “Zodiac” is not filled with incredible action scenes but has some good dialogue and very good acting. Another reason I liked this gritty film was the nostalgia which brought back memories, including “the slinky” and “pong”. Younger viewers may not appreciate all the nostalgia, but it will bring back many memories for the baby boomers. 

“Zodiac” spans over 20 years allowing director David Fincher to showcase the ever changing technology and social change. Fincher is not stranger to mind bending thrillers having directed “Alien 3”, “The Game” and “Panic Room”. The infamous Zodiac killer, who was never caught, terrorized San Francisco with seemingly random killings in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Fincher does a good job showing the timelines in the movie which start out as days and end up as years.

A former cartoonist, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) is obsessed with finding the Zodiac killer and sets out to eventually write a book on the debacle. Graysmith is constantly at odds with the alcohol and drugged out writer Paul Avery (Robert Downey, Jr.). Avery adds some comic relief to the movie and butts heads with the detectives David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards). Surprisingly, there was a good deal of humor throughout the movie despite the grim premise of the movie. Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch) is a fascinating character who becomes the obsession of all involved.

One very major point made throughout the movie was the clear lack of technology while hunting the serial killer. The lack of technology made the movie more interesting in my opinion. Being inundated with television shows like CSI and Bones it is amazing how little police had to work with before 1975 including no internet, cell phones, or even facsimile machines, and most importantly no DNA samples. “Zodiac” also demonstrates the lack of communication between police jurisdictions partially caused by technical limitations. The Zodiac killer in today’s gizmo laden world would have probably been caught, but of course that is not a guarantee.

Fincher does a good job in showing the societal trend of trust in the late 1960’s that does not exist today. Zodiac’s early victims were so naïve it was like watching a bad horror film where the victims are seemingly unaware of their imminent doom. Today, we have an inherent sense of caution based on how society has changed over the last thirty years.