Tedious, meticulous and detailed. These words all describe Zodiac. Typically these words would describe a movie that would bore me to tears, but in the case of Zodiac they serve their purpose, even if the film runs about 20 minutes too long.
Set in the city of San Francisco in the early ’70s, Zodiac centers on the infamous unsolved case surrounding a rash of serial murders attributed to a man who dubbed himself the Zodiac. After sending cryptic messages and ciphers into local newspapers taking credit for murders and threatening more the Zodiac Killer was born and gained the obsessive attention of San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal).
Director David Fincher is known for his attention to detail and as a director that demands a lot from his actors and isn’t scared to take multiple shots at the seemingly most simple of scenes. Sometimes taking up to 50 takes or more on some scenes for Zodiac his goal was to get it right – down to the last detail. While this serves as great nostalgia and sense of realism it also weighs down his picture a tad. Unlike his previous films such as Seven, Fight Club and Panic Room only a select number of scenes are dedicated to thrills as this picture is much more of a character study, and for good reason, as we follow Graysmith on his life altering search for the real Zodiac Killer.
Fincher paints a picture of dread, mystery and detail with Zodiac and uses a great performance given by Jake Gyllenhaal to guide us through it as we watch as he retraces Graysmith’s steps as told in his two published books of which the film was based.
Who was the Zodiac? No one really knows. This film leads you down a path to what may be the truth, but the scariest thing is you can never be sure. Even when you believe you are staring the answer right in the face.
