Hundreds of movies have been made about serial killers
and the police officers hunting them down, but David Fincher’s “Zodiac” (2007)
stands apart because of its more grounded approach. It chronicles a police
investigation that begins in San Francisco in 1969 and ends in 1991. Along the
way we follow smart police officers who do their best to narrow down a long of
list of suspects, and reporters who try to figure out what to do when the
killer sends them letters detailing his crimes. These are all intelligent people
trying to outsmart a cerebral killer. Yet there is also a surreal sense of
humor as the story unfolds. The manhunt and one of its detectives ended up
being the inspiration for “Dirty Harry” starring Clint Eastwood. Imagine
sitting in a movie theater watching an actor playing that detective who is
watching the movie that was inspired by his work.
When I first watched that scene and the rest of the
movie, it was my first time watching a movie at Toronto’s Scotiabank Theatre. I
was studying at Sherbrooke University at the time, but my dad had invited me
over for the weekend since him and my brother were in town for a geological
convention. Fun for them, but since I had zero intention of becoming a
geologist like them, I didn’t have a lot to do in the daytime while they were
busy browsing through the booths and talking to old friends. So, after
wandering around Toronto for a couple of hours, I got in a taxi and said “Take
me to the nearest movie theatre.” The driver smiled, probably thinking I was
out of town, and was nice enough to take me to the Scotiabank Theatre. Good
choice driver! You walk inside that place and there’s a spaceship hanging from
the ceiling, a giant escalator that runs the side of the building, and an IMAX
screen. Sitting down to watch “Zodiac,” I told myself I had to come back there
later.
Although “Zodiac” follows many characters over
decades, three characters take the center stage. The first is Robert Graysmith (Jake
Gyllenhaall), a cartoonist for the San
Francisco Chronicle who would later write a book about his experience with
the Zodiac investigation. He joins forces with Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) a
crime columnist for the Chronicle
after the paper receives encrypted letters detailing the assault of a couple a
few months earlier. The author of the letters calls himself Zodiac and demands
the paper print his cipher, challenging anyone to crack it. Graysmith, a puzzle
enthusiast, believes he is up to the challenge.
On the police side, San Francisco detectives Dave
Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and Billy Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) are officially
assigned the Zodiac case after the killer is linked to the shooting of a taxi
driver. Their list of suspects grows exponentially as the killer’s victims are
found in not only San Francisco but in other areas of the state. The taxi
driver was shot in the Presidio Heights district, a couple was shot in the city
of Vallejo, and another couple was stabbed in Napa County. Toschi and Armstrong
therefore pool their resources with detective Mulanax (Elias Koteas) in Vallejo
and detective Narlow (Donal Logue) in Napa.
As the investigation lingers, the list of suspects
increases along with the killer’s notoriety. Avery notices some of the letters
received by the Chronicle are fakes,
meaning there are possible copycat killers. A man claiming to be the Zodiac
calls a talk show to speak to celebrity lawyer Melvin Belli (Brian Cox) turning
the investigation into a national media event. The investigation of Graysmith
and Avery eventually collides with the work detective Toschi who tells them to
stay out of the way. Avery, who becomes increasingly paranoid after receiving a
threatening letter, decides to do just that and retreats into drugs and
alcohol.
Graysmith on the other hand continues to pursue the
killer for years, to the point of knocking on Toschi’s door in the middle of
the night to discuss their case. He becomes obsessed with Arthur Leigh Allen
(John Carroll Lynch), the one strong suspect that emerged from the joint
investigation. Circumstantial evidence points to Allen, but the physical
evidence rules him out.
Despite not having car chases or shootouts you would
usually have in standard serial killer movies, “Zodiac” keeps up the tension by
staying grounded in realism. David Fincher’s other serial killer movie “Seven”
showed detectives critically analyzing a crime scene making the audience
recreate the crime in their head. In “Zodiac” we see the murders occur, but
they are the more shocking by their randomness. The camera follows taxi driver
Paul Stine pick up a fare in the streets, drive a few blocks, and then he is suddenly
someone shot in the back of the head. Later we watch as Toschi and Armstrong
deduce where the killer was sitting and try to figure out what possible motive
he would have to pull the trigger.
What is even more impressive about this story is that
screenwriter James Vanderbilt decided to stick to the facts and end on an
ambiguous note. Was Arthur Leigh Allen the Zodiac? Graysmith certainly went
after him with everything he had, to the point of his wife leaving him, but
again the evidence just wasn’t there. For all we know, the killer is still out
there. Yet as Avery points out, more people in San Francisco were killed in car
accidents then by this killer.
On the plus side for me, the movie gave something to
talk about with my dad and brother that evening. And you can bet I later came
back to the Scotiabank Theatre.
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