Zodiac

Pretty much every serial killer film released in the past decade has been directly inspired* by two movies: Silence of the Lambs and Seven. All of the tropes that have become mindnumbling cliche, and in some cases, have transcended the cliche and become almost surreally ridiculous,** can be traced to the gimmicks pioneered in those two films, particularly the concept of a super genius murderer with fantastically creative methods of dispatching and displaying his victims.

The story of the Zodiac killer defies pretty much every codified element of the serial killer genre: an honest retelling of the decades-long unsolved case wouldn't provide for any of the usual comforts of serial killer films. That makes it all the more delicious that David Fincher, the director of Seven, engages the problem head-on and made a movie that intentionally defies every audience expectation. Most serial killer movies treat the issue of identifying the perpetrator as an afterthought, a flimsy justification for close-ups of slaughter, maniacal cackling, car and foot chases, and the cathartic destruction of the incarnated evil murderer. Fincher's Zodiac eschews every one of those staples in favor of a sweaty, tightly focused recounting of the painstaking, frustrating, generally fruitless attempt of police officers and journalists (played with period gusto by the likes of Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey, jr.) to piece together meagre, often contradictory evidence as to the identity of the publicity-hungry nutbag who killed five people and wounded two more during the late 60s in Northern California.

The film consciously, almost perversly, stimies attempts to grasp the case and follow the evidence to a conclusion. Suspects are introduced, evidence points in their direction and the audience feels the impending Ah-Ha! moment, and at several points Fincher brings his camera in tightly on something, a boot, a watch, and the soundtrack swells, the textbook cues that THIS IS IT! The case has been broken because a keen-eyed, dedicated sleuth has, through his unwavering committment to the case, discovered the one element that brings everything together and reveals the truth unambigiously. And then...nothing. More evidence is uncovered that seems to clear the suspect in question, search warrants come up empty, time passes (YEARS pass), lack of probable cause confounds further investigation, the trail grows cold and the dedicated, righteous investigators are rewarded for their commitment with ruined families, left alone with their unquenchable thirst for an answer. Generally, police thrillers take the tedious, demanding task of rigorous investigation based on the scientific method and turn it into a two-link evidence chain that always points in the direction of the real perpetrator, who we all know will go down in a hail of bullets. Fincher sprinkles references to crime films throughout the movie: every private home features movie posters as wall decorations, and at one point Gyllenhaal and Ruffalo even go see the film Diryt Harry, which was loosely inspired by the Zodiac case. Ruffalo (a San Francisco Police Inspector, just like Harry Callahan), walks out halfway through. In Zodiac, a good deal of running time is spent depicting events and chasing leads that lead nowhere, and even though the film tends to endorse the theory of the case endorsed by author Robert Graysmith, it presents plenty of evidence calling the theory into question, and when the credits roll, there's no sense that the case is anywhere near closed.

Fincher's decision to turn Zodiac into a sustained critique of serial killer film cliches is not only ballsy, it's a smart way to turn what could potentially have been the movie's biggest weakness, the tremendously anti-climatic ending, into a strength. When the film ended and the packed house I saw the film with let out a loud, sustained sigh of disappointment, it gave me the kind of giddy thrill I've never felt at the by-the-numbers conclusion of a normal serial killer film. The ending, which withholds catharsis or resolution, is a dramatically inert but thematically exhilerating: all of the film's efforts to deny the audience it's expected kill-thrills come together in one moment of collective deflation.

Score: 8.4

* read: ripped off

** Mindhunters, anyone?