Thrillers based on unsolved mysteries are inherently problematic. A mystery without a payoff doesn't send anyone home happy. David Fincher largely manages to sidestep this built-in handicap with ""Zodiac,"" a sprawling, compelling drama centering on the long, inevitably fruitless search for the elusive Zodiac killer. But be forewarned, hardcore fans of ""Se7en"" and ""Fight Club"": this is not your typical Fincher film—fast-paced, breathless and ultra-violent—rather, ""Zodiac"" is meditative, subtle and mostly devoid of violence.
This is a period film about fear and obsession, and Fincher throws us into the Zodiac case files and embeds us in them. It begins in the late '60s, when the Zodiac claims what are presumably his first victims and first sends cryptic messages to the San Francisco Chronicle. We follow Inspector Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and his partner, Inspector William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards), as they follow up on the many clues, including pieces of bloody cloth from a slain cab driver that also start to show up in the Chronicle's mailbox.
One of the Chronicle's most ambitious reporters, Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), writes a series of insulting articles about the Zodiac, which spurs the killer to personally threaten him. Another Chronicle worker, the shy cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), starts devoting much of his time to solving the Zodiac's puzzles, and he and Avery strike up a partnership of sorts. Weeks fade into months, and months erode into years, and still no solid suspects or leads surface. Only Graysmith persists and, in the process of researching a book on the subject (the book this film was based on), he comes the closest of anybody to cracking the case.
""Zodiac"" is the most faithful film that could've been made about the investigation, which both works in its favor and against it. As a police procedural, this is confident, absorbing work, cramming in fact after fact without feeling overstuffed. It is as shapeless, frustrating and ominous, as the investigation itself works to mire audiences in it completely. For better or worse, we feel every dead end and understand the impact on the principle characters whenever the trail goes cold in a way that we could not if the film was a more reasonable length.
However, while the narrative's shapelessness innovatively parallels the nature of the investigation, it also feels somewhat sloppy. James Vanderbilt's screenplay is skillful in that it recreates and juggles multiple true-life events with panache, but that attention to detail doesn't extend to the characterizations. This isn't the fault of the actors—Gyllenhaal is as dependable as he's always been, Downey continues to excel in another quirky supporting role and Ruffalo gives one of his best performances yet—but the film's structure doesn't reveal much about them.
The film keeps leapfrogging weeks, months, sometimes years ahead to specific junctures in the case, so even though we spend so much time with these characters, the film's choppiness makes it seem like we're only checking in on them. One minute, Avery's off badgering Toschi and doggedly pursuing the Zodiac, and the next he's given up and hitting the bottle like a champ. The same kind of thing goes for Toschi, who pretty much tracks the killer until, well, he up and quits. Then, we shift protagonists again and focus on Graysmith's fanatical quest to get the Zodiac.
So even though we get to understand the characters, we don't get to know them, which hinders ""Zodiac"" from being a truly great film. As a movie about the Zodiac killer, this is about as accurate as you can get, but it lacks the attention to character that Fincher usually invests in his films.
""Zodiac"" is an excellent, mature effort from Fincher—in fact, it may be his most ambitious film yet—but is it the masterpiece everyone is exalting? It's epic, riveting and chock full of outstanding performances, but it's hard to shake the feeling that ""Zodiac"" is a flawed director's cut of a great movie.
