'Zodiac' dogs a killer

Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

Friday, March 2, 2007

Beginning in the late 1960s, a letter-writing serial killer who dubbed himself The Zodiac terrorized the San Francisco area. By demanding that The San Francisco Chronicle and other papers publish his letters, The Zodiac managed to mix marketing and murder, turning his anonymity into a brand.

David Fincher, the director of Seven, Fight Club and The Panic Room, returns to many scenes of The Zodiac's many crimes in a carefully detailed and absorbing movie that's been drawn from the work of journalist Robert Graysmith.

During the Zodiac's murderous reign, Graysmith worked as a cartoonist at The San Francisco Chronicle. He later wrote two books about the Zodiac murders. The movie rightly portrays him as a key figure in the quest to identify the killer. The Zodiac was never caught, and a prime suspect died without ever having been arrested for the murders.

Based on Fincher's previous movies, I went into Zodiac expecting a highly stylized creepfest about a serial killer on the loose, something that danced skillfully on the edge of fear and exploitation. But the surprise - and it's a major one - involves the way Fincher turns down the stylistic volume.

Though all of a piece visually, Zodiac becomes a deliberate melding of multiple cinematic personalities: It's a suspenseful thriller, a police procedural and a newspaper movie. And this time, Fincher seems adamant about not letting technique overwhelm what amounts to one of the most detailed crime movies ever.

Fincher populates his movie with a strong cast. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Graysmith, whose obsession with Zodiac went far beyond the realm of "normal" reporting. In the end, Graysmith's obsession took its toll on his marriage to an initially supportive woman (Chloe Sevigny).

Had Zodiac been issued later in the year, Robert Downey Jr. would have been a shoo-in for an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actor. I hope Downey's not forgotten at the end of the year. Downey portrays Paul Avery, a Chronicle reporter who worked the case and whose extracurricular habits (drugs and alcohol) ultimately got the best of him.

Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards ably represent the police side of the equation, along with many other actors playing a slew of cops, coroners, medical examiners and forensic experts. Ruffalo's inspector Dave Toschi serves as the prime example of a cop who saw his life turn into a Zodiac roller coaster.

Fincher shows the Zodiac at his murderous work, but the movie can't be called sensationalistic. An investigatory story unfolds at a pace that might make it the least feverish movie ever made about obsession. And, no, Fincher doesn't entirely explain either Graysmith's obsession or The Zodiac's motivations.

Although that liberates the movie from cliche, it may also limit its greatness. Fincher so weds himself to accuracy that his movie sometimes seems to be missing a larger sense of truth. Think back on it and Zodiac becomes a big movie composed of scores of miniature renderings - of police stations, of newsrooms, of a terrorized city.

Still, real suspense emerges, and Fincher deserves credit for trying something daring. Instead of building a mystique around a killer, he tries to dismantle it. And at two hours and 40 minutes, there's plenty to dismantle.

So whodunit? Who was The Zodiac? Eventually, signs begin to point to a strange man named Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch), but the cops can't nail down the necessary evidence.

Zodiac doesn't offer the kind of lid-slamming closure common to thrillers, and at times I wondered what might be behind Fincher's obsession with this eerie chapter of Bay-area history, why he wanted to delve into an investigation that produced no definitive answers.

But Zodiac proves intriguing nonetheless, a skillfully assembled drama built around solid performances and a genuine respect for authenticity. Fincher has told a sprawling story about crime and fear and those whose lives are transformed by both.