by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
A- Rated R 165 min
Based on the true story of the Zodiac serial killer who terrorized San Francisco in the 1970s, this epic detective story is dialogue and character driven. James Vanderbilt adapted his masterfully written screenplay from Robert Graysmith’s book. Jake Gyllenhaal skillfully portrayed Graysmith, who was the San Francisco Chronicle’s political cartoonist. He became obsessed with the case and later quit his job to write his book.
Fincher’s intricate examination of the Zodiac case covers over 30 years of frustrating detective work, which yielded only a couple of prime suspects, mountains of circumstantial evidence, but nothing the police could take to a grand jury or make an arrest. The bizarre case took its toll on the investigators and newsmen who worked it, leaving them old and tired with little to show for their years of work to nail this monster.
The story is told through the eyes of lead detective Inspector David Toschi’s (Mark Ruffalo) exhaustive work on the case and Graysmith’s relentless research, which almost drove him crazy and strained his marriage. Toschi’s partner, Inspector William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) eventually retired from the case to spend more time with his family. Robert Downey, Jr is a cast stand out as the cynical, funny, and hard drinking Paul Avery whose provocative stories in the Chronicle resulted in him being targeted by the Zodiac. Avery was a victim of his excesses and addictions, which eventually cost him his life.
Fincher created a sepia tone, working-class mosaic, meticulously researched to its West Coast 1970s period. His plodding pacing and Vanderbilt’s well written volumes of dialogue are reminiscent of All The Kings Men. The classic rock songs on the soundtrack feature Donovan’s early hits, which are effective to set the time-frame of the story. The newsroom is right out of the real estate office of Glengarry Glen Ross with IBM “Selectric” typewriters on the cluttered metal desks, and with everyone smoking unfiltered Camels and running down to the local watering hole at the drop of a hat. Ah yes, those were the days when attitude adjustments happened at least twice a day.
In this smoky newsroom setting, Paul Avery strutted around like the cock-of-the-walk, clearly in love with himself, and acting out to piss-off the boss. Gyllenhaal’s Graysmith is a bashful nerd who cranks out political cartoons, most of which are rejected by the editor. He jumped into the Zodiac case with great enthusiasm, eventually becoming a nuisance to the detectives working the case. Even after 25 years, though, Graysmith still got the ear of Toschi.
The self-proclaimed Zodiac killer struck first on July 4, 1969 by shooting two teenagers on a lovers lane. The killer sent portions of a cipher to three Bay Area newspapers, threatening to keep on killing if the publications didn’t publish his letter and cipher.
What made this case so difficult to solve was the killer’s random patterns. He used variety of weapons–never the same ones. He killed in twos, threes, and fours, or he killed just one in different intervals. Then he would stop for awhile. If profiling had been around then, it would have been difficult but not impossible to profile the Zodiac. The investigators did conclude this guy was publicity hungry and craved attention to give himself a sense of power. His mocking phone calls and ciphers were designed to get him the maximum amount of publicity.
Throughout the investigation there were many clues and circumstantial evidence with many dead ends. The police found out that the Zodiac had seen a movie called the Most Dangerous Game which promoted the premise that humans were the best game to hunt because they were the most dangerous. Zodiac was playing on this theme of hunting humans like game. Zodiac left tantalizing evidence behind to confound and taunt the police, who he considered clueless louts.
Every lead was tirelessly tracked down and finally the cops liked Arthur Leigh Allen as the killer, (played by John Carroll Lynch). He had a history of touching kids, wore a Zodiac watch, and even wore “wing-walker” shoes (an early clue). He had even seen the Most Dangerous Game. He was the perfect suspect. However, after searching his trailer and doing ballistic tests on his guns, they came up with zilch. Even his handwriting didn’t match and later his DNA was not a match either.
As the years passed, the last detective working on the case, Inspector Toschi was reassigned to other cases, and the Zodiac investigation went cold. Graysmith finished his book which became a bestseller. Subsequently, his wife came back to him and he prospered. After 40 years since the case broke, the Zodiac saga is still open, now shelved in cold case storage.
After shooting six people–five teenagers and a cabbie– (five died) the killer suddenly stopped. Many close to the case believe he either died or was sent to prison on other charges. But the case is fodder for hundreds of amateur sleuths who keep the Zodiac alive. To this day, Robert Graysmith believes that Arthur Leigh Allen, who died in 1992, was the Zodiac. But retired cop Ken Narlow, now 76, believes “Zodiac is still out there.” It’s a chilling thought.
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