Zodiac: A Review

There is a moment later in the movie Zodiac where Robert Graysmith, the political cartoonist turned self-appointed investigator, ably played by Jake Gyllenhaal, shows up at the home of Inspector David Toschi, played by Mark Ruffalo. Energetically offering ideas and asking questions about the investigation of a serial killer now several years stale, he is rebuffed by the detective, who asks him if he knows how many murders have been committed in the San Francisco area since the Zodiac killer’s last murder. “Hundreds,” the inspector answers his own question. Hundreds of grieving families. Hundreds of killers to bring to justice. Hundreds of cases with the same degree of importance as the case that both fascinates, then consumes, then haunts these men. Why, then, should they continue to chase trails that grow ever colder in pursuit of a resolution that may never be found?

This is the question that stands at the center of David Finch’s exceptional Zodiac. Having offered a genre-defining psychological exploration of a serial killer in Seven, he returns to the genre years later with a radically different approach. Moving away from the dark mood and the seedy world that inhabited his earlier effort, he instead offers us a way into a vibrant and energetic San Francisco of the late ‘60’s. The characters he brings to life on screen must be an actor’s dream, offering rich variety and texture. From the flamboyant and self-destructive reporter Paul Avery, played by Robert Downey, Jr., to Graysmith’s clean-cut family man and quiet cartoonist, to the detectives each filled with personality. These are generally likeable people, who come to the case with their own interests and objectives, their own histories, each to be molded by a case that will never be solved.

It is this last fact that will shape much of the response to the film. I’m not spoiling anything, mind you, or at least it isn’t the kind of spoiler that should count. I still laugh at the friend who walked out of Titanic and said to his friend, “I’m glad they finally sunk that ship,” only to have a patron in line shout, “Thanks for telling us!” You’re on notice when you’re dealing with history, and your own wiki-research, if not your own knowledge of the events, will quickly turn up that no one was ever charged in the cases that are the subject of the movie. Fincher takes a particular spin on this case, and that I won’t spoil, but he doesn’t abandon entirely the futility and madness that must define this case.

Instead, what he offers us is a long tale that slowly draws in person after person, all having their own season of fascination at the case’s mysteries. Early on, we see vivid portrayals of two of the murders. Their violence isn’t gratuitous, but they are excruciating to watch. In taking us through this, he captivates our attention as much as the people who became consumed with the case. Tossing back and forth between the investigation of the San Francisco Chronicle, the paper who received the killer’s letters, and the detectives who inherited the case when the killer turned his attention to San Francisco, we are never invited to settle on a single hero, but instead walk through various perspectives, each person finding their own end of futility.

The experiences of these different players struck me vividly and personally. I can remember, working as a prosecutor, the first time I saw a judge work his way to a wildly incorrect decision (it only took about a week on the job to see this). Watching the defendant walk out the back door when he should have been taken away in cuffs was absolutely dumbfounding. Of course, seeing things like that happen on a near daily basis, the shock grew muted, which may not have been a good thing. That “adjustment,” though, was the common coping mechanism I witnessed among most who lived and worked inside the system. Indeed, it was a survival skill that they had to have to come back to work the next day.

Zodiac has its share of these kinds of people, those who have a realistic perspective on the limits of the system and of their own abilities to ascertain and expose truth. I was impressed that Fincher was able to bring this to bear with a relatively uncynical eye, something I rarely could do in my own time as an insider. But he also provides us with the bystander’s view, through Gyllenhaal, who is driven to find truth without the incentive of career or acclaim. Indeed, as Avery points out to him early in the movie, he is the one “hero” in the movie that has no “angle” to be involved in the case.

In this sense, then Gyllenhaal is the voice for most of us who stand outside of the world of crime and must only read about it, or watch the cleanup efforts on television. As we see evil come before us, there is an innate cry for justice, and what we expect from those insiders, as we should, is their own best efforts to pursue the ends of justice, with all the complexities that that entails.

And here is where the movie succeeds most. It draws us into the madness of world of crime and the intricacies of the world of evidence and investigation, and then lets us experience in some way the frustration that insiders see every day. At the end of the day, injustice reigned because the system just couldn’t find the killer. No evil judge, or incompetent jury, no sadistic cop, or prejudiced prosecutor killed this case. All of those things may happen, but here, the limits were experienced mainly by people who were depicted as competent and conscientious, dedicated to their jobs and serious about finding the killer. They just couldn’t do it.

The reality of our world is that we will know injustice. We will see it, and if we aren’t seeing it, it is probably simply because we are closing our eyes. The best system that we can assemble, and ours is far from that, will not be able to change all of the realities of injustice. Just as we will always have the poor with us, we will always have injustice with us. And so, like Zodiac, the impulses that drive the Toschis and the Graysmiths to lay down their lives in the pursuit of truth and justice will necessarily encounter an ellipse when that search is confined to this life. We know injustice in the end because the source of Justice has not made His final move. And until He does, we will know more of these long journeys that offer only an unsatisfying ending.