Mini Film Review – Zodiac

Yesterday I watched Zodiac; and it was very interesting! Directed by David Fincher, and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr.; Zodiac is a mystery film based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Robert Graysmith. The film follows the career’s of a detective (Ruffalo), a cartoonist (Gyllenhaal), and a journalist (Downey Jr.), as they try to identify the Zodiac Killer. It’s an interesting film, as due to the time of the crimes; the film paints an interesting picture, of what the world was like back then, and how it changed as time went by. It does though feature some rather unreliable CGI to present the past, which just looks off, but this is a relatively minor detail. For the most part the film is a crime drama, and an interesting one, as it goes from trying to find the Zodiac Killer, to trying to make a genuine suggestion, as to who it might have been. It features some interesting leads, whose lives begin to spiral; as obsession takes hold, and likes to switch perspectives, as well as remove those whose stories are no longer applicable to the story. In the end it comes down to the life of one man’s obsession, to find the killer. It’s sort of like Memories of Murder, in that at the time of that film’s release, it was still an unsolved crime; and it tried to highlight a likely suspect, but didn’t finish on a proper conclusion. So in the case of Zodiac; it sort of weaves away at your mind, as to how you think this film will conclude, whilst still allowing moments of doubt and horror to play on your senses. It’s a pretty cool, and often relaxing experience, that allows you to see the inner workings of how a case is conducted, and relies on the hidden visuals to scare you. But, it still works well, not to pin the murders on anyone in particular, especially as it’s still an unsolved case!