Monday, April 27, 2015

Zodiac (2007) 4 of 4

** this review contains mild-to-moderate spoilers **

Like Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac killer of the 1960s and 1970s looms large in the history of serial killers partly because he was never brought to justice.  I almost wrote that they never caught Zodiac, but that's misleading.  As David Fincher's superb fictionalization explains, investigators concluded multiple times that Arthur Leigh Allen was the killer.  They just couldn't make it stick. 

It's odd how recent films set in the 1970s seem as evocative of the era as films made in the 1970s: The Virgin Suicides, Boogie Nights, Frost/Nixon, The Runaways, The Lovely Bones, The Ice Storm.  The 1970s fascinate us with their mix of decadence and innocence (these people must have a kind of innocence, to wear those styles).

Zodiac is both matter-of-fact and frightening.  Impeccably mounted and detailed, it's enthralling, even at almost three hours.  In addition to other pitch-black serial killer films, it reminded of both Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men and Sidney Lumet's Prince of the City

The film is based on the book by Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), the newspaper cartoonist who became obsessed with the case, starting with his friendship with a cavalier crime reporter (Robert Downey Jr.).  The third investigator profoundly affected by the case was detective David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo).  Some of the principals are listed as consultants in the end credits. 

As much as violence, the criminal known as Zodiac craves attention: he claims murders he didn't commit and sends coded messages to the media and the cops.  Graysmith explains that the code is very basic, not hard to crack.  A nerdy, soft-spoken man, Graysmith haltingly tells interviewers about his love of books and puzzles.  This is a major theme of the film, what all concerned have in common: killer, pursuers, filmmakers and intended audience, we all love puzzles.

The way these characters are brought together by puzzles and mysteries dovetails with Fincher's usual theme of male loneliness.  Fincher's films follow conflict and behavior stemming from two facts: men get lonely and alienated, men are not supposed to admit to these feelings.

As with Silence of the Lambs or Se7en, we can't entirely separate ourselves from the sadistic killer because after all, we sought out the movie.  I may not kill someone, but I thrill to a good serial killer movie, even one with lines of dialogue like the following, directed to a winsome young mom (Ione Skye): "Before I kill you I'm going to throw your baby out the window."  (If that sounds comical written down, it's not funny at all in the movie.)

Zodiac portrays the killer as a loser: a lonely, hulking man; a repressed, self-hating homosexual who keeps squirrels for pets.  Still, we are left with the chilling probability that he won the game he started: Allen spent time in prison for child molestation, and was questioned by Toschi, but was never arrested or charged with the Zodiac killings.  He helped inspire the string of holiday-based slasher movies of ensuing years, and today, we still debate the media's proper role in reporting violent crime. 

Again like Jack the Ripper, Zodiac craved attention, which is why a film can be fact-based: he gave us the information.  We can only speculate about the more discreet predators that operate on our rural byways or down our pleasant side streets.