HOLLYWOOD POV: "Zodiac"

Expecting an interesting period crime drama about a serial killer that terrorized California for over 10 years taunting the police and the public with ciphers and letters addressed to newspapers detailing his work, Zodiac will surprise you as you nod off after the first hour has gone by. At two hours in, you might have to go stand in the back of the theater as you allow your numb behind to get the feeling back. Zodiac is an overly long film with too many suspects and too much detail with no payoff.

Based on case files and notes made by obsessed San Francisco Chronicle newspaper cartoonist and cipher enthusiast, Robert Graysmith, who write the book on which this film is based, Zodiac is an in depth look what went on the behind-the-scenes as journalists and cops in many different jurisdictions tried in vain to solve one of the most intriguing still-unsolved crimes in history.

The Zodiac killer began his killing spree in the Bay area in 1968 when he murdered five known victims in ten months. The victims were completely unrelated and lived in different towns in Northern California: Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa, and San Francisco. This brought in four different police departments in four different towns and solving the crime began as a jurisdictional nightmare, all of which is deeply chronicled by Zodiac in excruciating detail. These five victims are the only known Zodiac killings, though there are many more murders thought to be done by Zodiac, there is little evidence. Supposedly there is no connection between the victims and Zodiac, and they are thought to have been selected at random. There are more crimes many have attributed to Zodiac, but only the five victims are known to be his work.

A killer ahead of his time, Zodiac even created his own logo. On August 1, 1969, Zodiac sent ciphers and handwritten letters to three Bay area newspapers, the Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner, taunting the police and newsmen alike. Each letter contained one third of a cryptogram with a total of 408 characters, which he claimed contained his identity. Zodiac demanded that his ciphers be printed on the front pages of the aforementioned newspapers or he would go on a rampage and kill 12 people that weekend. Not all the newspapers printed the cipher on the front page, but the promised rampage did not occur. Zodiac continued taunting the police and newspapers with strange handwritten letters and ciphers into the early 1970s.

This is a true and spooky story and Director David Fincher only allows us to feel spooked towards the very end of this almost 3-hour film. The men involved in trying to solve the Zodiac killer mystery gave their lives to solving this crime. Some dropped out due to the stress on themselves and their families, some turned to self-medication, others turned away or timed out of their jobs. But not Graysmith, who lost his own family to his obsession and went on to write two books about Zodiac.

David Fincher (Se7en, Alien 3, Fight Club, Panic Room) takes the fixated cop cliché and turns it into a team of fixated cops and newsmen cliché. Fincher has great promise as a director as his work has shown in the past; just take a look at Fight Club to see a really fine piece of work. But Fincher has yet to live up to his promise in this reviewers opinion, Se7en was a disgusting premise with another let-down ending that left the viewer feeling annoyed, and Panic Room too had an interesting premise that got let down in the end.

Fincher has the same problem with Zodiac as the film has way too much detail and not enough emotion. His casting choices also seem to rely on film clichés. Here we have the great Robert Downey Jr. playing his favorite role of drug and alcohol addled whatever (in this case a newspaper writer Paul Avery); the brilliant Jake Gyllenhaal channeling another cliché, that of the nutcase cartoonist Robert Graysmith (reminding us of R.Crumb in his portrayal); also clichés are the various police roles, the always boring Mark Ruffalo as the by-the-book cop David Toschi, Anthony Edwards as his exhausted partner, and even the interesting Donal Logue as Ken Narlow.  Fincher completely wastes the huge talents of the only two female roles, Chloe Sevigny as the wife of Graysmith, and Clea DuVall in a cameo. What an incredible cast and what an incredible waste of their talent.

Wouldn't it have been a more interesting film to see these actors play against type?

Being that Fincher is a critics darling this reviewer fully expects fawning reviews of this film, but don't get taken in by press notes written by publicists.... And bring a pillow to sit on so you can feel your behind when you get up after three hours.

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Digital Dogs rating:  B

MPAA rating: R for some strong killings, language, drug material and brief sexual images.

Running Time: 158 minutes

Producers Mike Medavoy, Arnold W. Messer, Bradley J. Fischer, James Vanderbilt, and Ceán Chaffin, Director David Fincher, Screenplay James Vanderbuilt, based on the book by Robert Graysmith, Music David Shire, Editor Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall, DP Harris Savides, Actors Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox, Elias Koteas, Donal Logue, John Carroll Lynch, Dermot Mulroney, Chole Sevigny, Clea DuCall, Charles Fleischer, Adam Goldberg,

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© 2007 by Digital Dogs

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--- Digital Dogs is gather's Los Angeles Movie Correspondent ---

Digital Dogs' column, HOLLYWOOD POV, published every Thursday to Gather Essentials: Movies is an insider's look at the art, people, and product of Hollywood.

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