My on location in San Francisco series continues with a screening of the film Zodiac. This is a film I really wish I had seen in a movie theatre. David Fincher's meticulous crime thriller leads you deeper and deeper into obsession as the police and reporters search for the serial killer who stalked the bay area in the 60's and 70's.
The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist who worked at the San Francisco Chronicle, Robert Downey, Jr. as the papers hard drinking crime reporter, and Mark Ruffalo as Dave Toschi and Anthony Edwards as Bill Armstrong, the San Francisco police detectives assigned to the case.
The follows the murders and real life investigation that went into trying to catch the Zodiac.
The film recreates the time period in meticulous detail. The movie is filmed in high -def digital with outstanding use of CGI to recreate a city that existed 40 years ago. The movie presents hundreds of details about the Zodiac and takes place over a period of years, all over California, but the audience is never lost. Each step of the way we see how the clues unfolded to reveal who the killer might be.
In many ways the film reminded me of All The President's Men. It had the tension and suspense that occurs when a mystery is being unraveled, but its focus is on the day to day routines of the police and reporters who attempt to catch the killer. The movie then goes one step further and takes the audience into obsession, when finding the killer begins to consume Robert Graysmith. When he becomes so focused on revealing the identity of the Zodiac he becomes clueless to the danger he is putting himself and his family into.
The film avoids all the standard cliches of today's Hollywood movies. No car chases, no shoot-outs and no neat tidy ending. The Zodiac was never caught and the film stays true to real life showing that some mystery's are never solved.
At The Movie House rating **** stars
3 comments:
I should view this film again. I like much of Fincher's work, but wasn't impressed with this one.
I'm impressed that he's taken the reigns of the English-language remake of "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo".
4 stars means great film...thios one was very good but not great...i can always judge a great film if it stays with me the next day...this one did not...One of the problems thi sfilm had, and it is unavoidable...you know how the story ends...zodiac was not caught...I don;t fault the movie for this but it does get in the way...again, a vet good film, but not great...Good review however
I really liked this film and was very impressed by it. i knew the history of the Zodiac going in so I was not looking for a neat ending with the mystery solved. The movie is an excellent combination of two film genres, the newspaper movie and the police procedural. I was completely immersed in the mystery and the film does an outstanding job of laying all the information and people involved with the Zodiac investigation out in a way that the audience can follow throughtout the film. An outstanding cast, great script, cinematography and art design. I can think of many films where the audience knows the ending, from Titanic, The Alamo, All The President's Men to 1776, and it's all about how the story is told and how much you care about the characters along the way. An excellent film.
I am looking forward to "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" especially now that Daniel Craig is working with David Fincher.
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