THE Zodiac killer would be turning in his grave (actually he might conceivably still be alive); he caused so much panic and notoriety back when he was sending intriguing letters to the San Francisco Chronicle and killing innocent people; yet now people barely remember him.

Ask anyone to name an uncaught serial killer and Jack the Ripper springs to mind. However, the Zodiac killer is far more fascinating than Jack so much so that books and already half a dozen films (including Dirty Harry) have been made about him.

However, Zodiac is the definitive film to seize your interest on a serial killer because it recreates the moments of terror, morbid fascination, suspense and unrewarded interest so vividly.

The film is lead by a host of great performances. Robert Downey Jr. as reporter Paul Avery is outstanding and often hilarious as he turns from an obsessive reporter to an off the rails paranoid addict. Mark Ruffalo as Inspector David Toschi shows talent for conveying the physical and mental toll of his job. It is Jake Gyllenhaal’s Robert Graysmith who is the main protagonist and he carries the film into its fixated climax. The script is excellent at mixing office banter with the stream of details that flood the film. David Fincher covers many themes in his work, even managing to have a dig at Dirty Harry’s Hollywood-isation of real events; a film that many thought was very audacious for being anti Hollywood.

Zodiac is a film that becomes what it is about; an obsessive quest for truth where any answers remain uncertain and all tropes of the serial killer genre are flipped sideways. Zodiac’s absorbing character study is what lies centre to the film’s themes. Robert Graysmith, Paul Avery and Inspector Toschi search for the truth until it drives them either to ruin or utter consummation. It is the Zodiac killer’s path of destruction on those who are tailing him that the film is more interested in not the killings or the victims of his crimes. The audience is bombarded with facts, dates and suspects that constantly keep the plot moving to such a relentless pace to equal the best thrillers, yet all that the action consists of is people talking. The killings themselves remain brutal because of their shocking resemblance to the real crimes.

Zodiac seems all too real in its reconstruction yet its most suspenseful moments occur when the Zodiac suspects are on screen. The wonderful interrogation scene between suspect Arthur Leigh Allen and the three inspectors leading the case is so tense because the audience is constantly thrown off balance and is teased with visual details that provide clues; Arthur’s watch for instance; coincidental or the inspiration behind the Zodiac’s moniker? A later scene between another suspect Bob Vaughn and cartoonist Graysmith is utterly chilling.

The masterful direction from Fincher is what elevates Zodiac from its contemporaries. Moving away from the showy visuals that filtered through his previous works Fight Club and Se7en; here Fincher keeps the camera relatively stationary he says ‘so nothing can distract the audience from what the characters say’. His perfectionism to rival Kubrick makes Zodiac a superbly crafted thriller. The reconstruction and evolution of late 60’s to late 70’s San Francisco is stunning and sublime (particularly the time lapse sequence of the construction of the Transamerica Pyramid) and he clearly shows enough understanding of the serial killer genre to elicit suspense from a premise where the killer is never found and a story that many already know.

At two and a half hours the film could be seen as overlong and self important but the end result is a fascinating look into America’s great unsolved cases and the fractured lives it left. A minor sub plot between Graysmith and his wife Melanie is a fairly stale and unnecessary take of the ‘obsessive male and his wife’ as seen in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. There are times when Fincher relies too much on pathetic fallacy to express his character’s feelings but it still serves as an ominous presence that forever lurks in these men’s lives.

Zodiac is crafted so finely it is hard to understand how good it is. Several rewatches later it should become apparent that Zodiac is a film of meticulous construction; a film in which its journey is more important that the destination and it is this that rewards repeated viewings. Zodiac has received less attention than the other works of David Fincher however time will see this as a classic. This may just be Fincher’s masterpiece.

  • This review was submitted by a reader. Submit yours in the 'reviews' section of our forums here.