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Zodiac
is about a famed serial killer, why shouldn’t the film take our breath
away? To do its job properly, it really has to, doesn’t it? It’s a
movie that requires audiences to be rattled to the bone and chilled to
the knees if it’s to hit home – and it does, big time.
A
gloriously detailed and fabulously cast suspense thriller, the film
chronicles one of America’s most renowned slayers – San Francisco
killer of the late 60s, The Zodiac.
Based on the book by Robert
Graysmith, it largely concentrates on the cartoonist cum voluntary
private detective’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) obsession with finding out the
identity of the unstoppable murderer. With the assistance of boozehound
reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr; as versatile as ever), Graysmith
eventually starts to get some answers. Fat lot of good that seems to do
him though, what with all the red-tape surrounding the case – and being
that he isn’t a cop that tape’s pretty hard to cut through.
Zodiac is The Departed
of Serial Killer movies – it's got just as immense and terrific a cast;
it’s as resplendently detailed as Marty’s mega-hit and it’s near
(probably just a tad less) just as gripping. In short, it’s a near
watertight film.
Some may oppose Fincher’s barefaced ‘finger
pointing’ and ‘wide-eyed guesses’, but one can’t argue that he’d have
enough evidence – based on how meticulous he’s been with the guts of
the film - to back up such broad claims. He’s made good use of the
facts that are available about the killer.
It’s hard to say what
the strongest element of the film is – or whether it’s a combination of
all and everything – because everything blends so deliciously well.
James
Vanderbilt’s script is responsible for the huge amount of detail
(everything you could imagine to take you back to the 60s and 70s has
been incorporated) and well-developed characters, or – as may be the
case with the latter – it’s to the credit of the director or cast (who
are all terrific). Either way, it works.
The only downfall of
Zodiac is the second-half – not only does it get a big long-winded, but
it struggles to hold your interest as much as it did in its first half
(as the attention turns from the killings themselves to the private
lives of the men on the case), if even just slightly. Those with a
pretty low threshold for patience will find themselves tested in quite
a few spots (a woman at the screening I was at got up afterwards and
let everyone know that it was “too damn long”, and also informed the
cinema usher, on her way out, too) but others with a woody for the
exhaustive and epic will find it an enthralling experience.
Fantastic to see Hollywood can still produce a solid film in-between all the slop.
EXTRAS
The film may be great, but the DVD is lame – just the one extra; an OK
but ultimately forgettable making-of. (Word is - a director’s cut
version of the film, complete with an extra disc full of supplementary
materials, will be out in 2008). Conclusion:
Movie 80% Extras: 40%
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