Movies You Should Netflix

Zodiac
A serial killer movie where the killer is never caught is a tricky thing to pull off. Audiences usually demand closure and this closure often comes at the expense of the vision of the film’s director. Everything has to be tied into a nice little bow (or into a flimsily tacked-on ending to appease test audiences, as the case may be) for the vast majority of today’s moviegoers. To those of you who belong to this embarrassing group, director David Fincher (Fight Club) has just given you the finger – and I LOVE it. Spanning a near 25-year period, Fincher’s mesmerizing Zodiac is a more than worthy addition to an already phenomenal portfolio (Seven, The Game, Fight Club) as it takes an unconventional approach to the serial killer genre. The film is a harrowing examination not only of the infamous (and never caught) Zodiac killer, but also of the men who are charged with capturing him. While most movies of this ilk focus mainly on the gore of the killings and on the motivations of the killer, Fincher more or less avoids this temptation after the first hour. Instead – and this is a genius move – he shows how the hunt for the Zodiac consumes and eventually ruins the lives of nearly everyone who gets deeply involved in the case. For Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal, Jarhead), a political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle with an affinity for solving puzzles, it becomes an obsession that ultimately costs him his family. For crime reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey, Jr., A Scanner Darkly), it becomes a crusade in vanity that ends in an overindulgence of booze and drugs. For Inspector David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo, Collateral), his tenacity eventually comes at the price of his position as a homicide detective and even briefly shines the light of Zodiac suspicion on Toschi himself. Hunting the Zodiac becomes a kind of drug to those involved. They exhibit a desperation to be the ones to crack the case and when the Zodiac disappears for years at a time, they seem to despair in his absence. Each one is Captain Ahab hunting their very own Moby Dick. The primary investigators become so single-minded in their approaches that they scramble to fit the evidence to their theories instead of taking the opposite (and more effective) tact. Technically speaking, Fincher is at the top of his game here. Right from the opening vintage Paramount Studios title card, you know that Fincher is going to do his damndest to capture the feel of the late ‘60’s – early ’70’s time period where the majority of the story takes place. He shoots the film (the first feature to be shot entirely digitally and without film or videotape) to look exactly like the products of that era and, were it not for a recognizable and incredibly well cast group of current actors, you’d swear you were watching something straight out of 1974. The pacing and the music lend themselves so perfectly to that era as Fincher eschews the temptation to pepper the soundtrack with recognizable hits, as a lesser director may have. As for the visual effects that we’ve come to expect in a David Fincher film, they’re in shorter supply but are used effectively to show the incredible passage of time in the Zodiac case, most notably the sped-up construction of a skyscraper. This serves to demonstrate just how unbelievably drawn-out the hunt for the Zodiac actually was. Where Fincher's Panic Room suffered from its straightforward approach, Zodiac shines because of it. Instead of veering off into melodramatic tangents, it’s presented almost as a documentary, a style which lends itself perfectly to the subject matter at hand. Calling Zodiac one of the (if not THE) best films of 2007 is almost damning it with faint praise when considering the general quality of films lately, but it is an exhilarating piece of filmmaking that is most certainly not to be missed.

Dirty Rating: 97/100

Zodiac On Metacritic
Zodiac On Rotten Tomatoes

Recommended Viewing:
Seven
Fight Club

Has any movie this year been better than Zodiac? Comment below.