In a recent interview with the Associated Press, "Zodiac" (Rated: R; Running Time: 158 min.) director David Fincher claimed that his movie needed to be two and a half hours long in order to condense the 30 or so years that the infamous serial killer's case has been open into a single movie.
He failed to mention that it needed to be that long because he was also condensing three genres of films — horror, crime thriller and cop movie — into one picture, all while allowing the directorial wiles that made “Fight Club” so good and “Panic Room” not bad to roam freely.
It's Fincher’s ability to make an ordinary shot or scene into something enjoyable that makes this two-plus-hours trip down serial killer memory lane actually tolerable. Instead of just documenting the Zodiac, a serial killer who terrorized San Francisco in the 60‘s and 70’s while taunting the police with letters sent in to the San Francisco Chronicle, Fincher, weaves together the stories of the cops, the Zodiac and the two reporters, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.).
Unfortunately the tight interplay between cops, killer and journalist doesn’t last the entire film, since in reality the Zodiac disappeared after only a few years, popping up one more time with only a letter. So the film's focus must shift to Graysmith who has become obsessed with the case and finding out the Zodiac's identity. While Fincher’s direction makes for taught suspense in scenes that could have just been boring otherwise, and Gyllenhaal’s character is an interesting one, it is not the man everyone came to see. The film loses a lot of steam until it reveals its theory of who the Zodiac is (the real life Zodiac was never identified).
As any Hollywood film, the movie (based more on Graysmith’s book “Zodiac” than the real life events) changes the events to be much more entertaining and suspenseful, especially by pointing a finger at an actual killer, something none of the police departments investigating the case could ever do. But this probably makes it a better film, as it allows for some sort of closure and for Fincher’s direction to change stylistically throughout each decade in a very cool way.
As an end note, Downey nails his performance as the drug addicted reporter, Avery — probably because he spent most of the 90’s preparing for the role.
<1b>— Matthew Razak