Movie Review - Zodiac
The long-awaited adaptation of Robert Graysmith's book "Zodiac" (long-awaited by me, anyway, having been a fan of the book for 15 years) has finally arrived. Graysmith was a political cartoonist in San Francisco when the first Zodiac killings took place in the late 1960's, and over the years his obsession with the case has brought him to the forefront of the Zodiac experts. His isn't just a story of assembling a mountain of evidence, but of personal involvement, of trying to correct the mistakes of law enforcement officials who didn't share information, and even to the point of personally solving one of the famous Zodiac cyphers which had stumped experts for years.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the case, Zodiac was a serial killer in the San Francisco area in the late 60's and early 70's. His fame came not just from the killings, but from his letters to police and the press, taunting "the blue pigs" for their failed efforts, threatening to shoot out the tires of a school bus and "pick off the kiddies one by one as they come bouncing out", and even including pieces of a bloody shirt removed from one of his victims to prove his authenticity. Zodiac has always been an enigma...nobody knows how many he killed, counts vary from eight to as many as forty. As a publicity hound he took credit for killings he may not have been guilty of. And then there were the cyphers - pages of symbols in a code which he demanded area newspapers print on the front page or else he would go on a killing spree.
The movie centers on three main players in the Zodiac case: Graysmith (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), fellow San Francisco Chronicle employee and reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), and police detective David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo). Graysmith comes off as a Boy Scout-type oddball who develops a feel for Zodiac and a obsession with the case. Avery is accurately portrayed as a self-destructive alcoholic who can't see past his own desire for press - "this is good business" he is heard to comment. Mark Ruffalo's performance is very strong as Toschi, the detective who Steve McQueen modeled his Bullitt character after. The murder of cab driver Paul Stine suddenly jumps from simple robbery to a serial killing, and as San Francisco is gripped by panic (and the media goes into frenzy mode), the various police departments involved try to play catch-up. The film allows the viewer to see how chaotic the whole situation was, with no sharing of critical information between local, county, and state law enforcement officials.
Eventually Graysmith decides to write a book on the case, as his obsession costs him his job and destroys his marriage. Running back and forth between locations, suspects, archives, libraries, and police departments, Graysmith (in book and film) makes a case for one particular suspect. A follow-up book, "Zodiac Unmasked", was basically devoted to building that case. Sadly no charges were ever filed, and that suspect has since died of a heart attack. In 2004 a partial DNA sample was found under a postage stamp on one of the Zodiac letters and I believe this suspect was not a match, but nobody has really decided how to handle that. Likewise, suspects were eliminated throughout the investigation on the basis of a partial hand-print found in the cab (which may or may not have been Zodiac's) and writing samples compared to the letters. The confusion in this case helps point out how far law enforcement has come to eliminate the types of problems which plagued the Zodiac investigation from Day One.
Its hard to adapt a book like Graysmith's for the screen, especially when there is no big payoff - we all know they don't find the bad guy before you even walk into the theatre. And the case is so complex, and filled with so many tidbits, readers of the book may argue that some information should have been put in the film. Yet even with all the things missing, it runs over 2 1/2 hours. You have to stop SOMEWHERE!
I had heard lukewarm reviews of the film before I saw it, so I was delighted to learn it was better than I expected. Overall I give it a B+. Take a trip back 35 years and experience all over again a period in history when "the good old days" were ending and violent crime began to become a daily occurance.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the case, Zodiac was a serial killer in the San Francisco area in the late 60's and early 70's. His fame came not just from the killings, but from his letters to police and the press, taunting "the blue pigs" for their failed efforts, threatening to shoot out the tires of a school bus and "pick off the kiddies one by one as they come bouncing out", and even including pieces of a bloody shirt removed from one of his victims to prove his authenticity. Zodiac has always been an enigma...nobody knows how many he killed, counts vary from eight to as many as forty. As a publicity hound he took credit for killings he may not have been guilty of. And then there were the cyphers - pages of symbols in a code which he demanded area newspapers print on the front page or else he would go on a killing spree.
The movie centers on three main players in the Zodiac case: Graysmith (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), fellow San Francisco Chronicle employee and reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), and police detective David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo). Graysmith comes off as a Boy Scout-type oddball who develops a feel for Zodiac and a obsession with the case. Avery is accurately portrayed as a self-destructive alcoholic who can't see past his own desire for press - "this is good business" he is heard to comment. Mark Ruffalo's performance is very strong as Toschi, the detective who Steve McQueen modeled his Bullitt character after. The murder of cab driver Paul Stine suddenly jumps from simple robbery to a serial killing, and as San Francisco is gripped by panic (and the media goes into frenzy mode), the various police departments involved try to play catch-up. The film allows the viewer to see how chaotic the whole situation was, with no sharing of critical information between local, county, and state law enforcement officials.
Eventually Graysmith decides to write a book on the case, as his obsession costs him his job and destroys his marriage. Running back and forth between locations, suspects, archives, libraries, and police departments, Graysmith (in book and film) makes a case for one particular suspect. A follow-up book, "Zodiac Unmasked", was basically devoted to building that case. Sadly no charges were ever filed, and that suspect has since died of a heart attack. In 2004 a partial DNA sample was found under a postage stamp on one of the Zodiac letters and I believe this suspect was not a match, but nobody has really decided how to handle that. Likewise, suspects were eliminated throughout the investigation on the basis of a partial hand-print found in the cab (which may or may not have been Zodiac's) and writing samples compared to the letters. The confusion in this case helps point out how far law enforcement has come to eliminate the types of problems which plagued the Zodiac investigation from Day One.
Its hard to adapt a book like Graysmith's for the screen, especially when there is no big payoff - we all know they don't find the bad guy before you even walk into the theatre. And the case is so complex, and filled with so many tidbits, readers of the book may argue that some information should have been put in the film. Yet even with all the things missing, it runs over 2 1/2 hours. You have to stop SOMEWHERE!
I had heard lukewarm reviews of the film before I saw it, so I was delighted to learn it was better than I expected. Overall I give it a B+. Take a trip back 35 years and experience all over again a period in history when "the good old days" were ending and violent crime began to become a daily occurance.
Comments