Films about serial killers always seem to be a strong draw at the box office.  The sheer terror of killings taking place, one after another, with no apparent clues as to why, fascinates with its blend of cop thriller and horror flick.

      The Zodiac killings in San Francisco nearly 40 years ago remain one of the most notorious of serial killings, not least because they remain officially unsolved today. At least seven films and over a dozen books have been based in whole or part on the case.  All this activity suggests it’s pretty easy to get sucked into events, and that’s just what happens to the major characters in Zodiac, the most recent cinematic take on the killings.

      One by one, those who allow themselves to become obsessed with the Zodiac killer find their lives falling apart, and in the end there is no true closure, merely a strong circumstantial case against one suspect. 

      That sounds like it would be incredibly frustrating, and it doesn’t help that this movie is a tad over two and a half hours long.  But Zodiac holds your attention throughout, in part because of a superb cast and skillful direction.

      Beginning with a July 4^th attack on two would-be lovers in a parked car, we see several of the Zodiac’s proven murders and a couple of “maybes” or near misses as well.  Each killing is accompanied by a boastful letter from the killer, along with a cryptic cipher to be decoded.

      The film centers around Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhal), a youthful cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle whose job keeps him only peripherally connected to the case. But for much of the early action, the real investigation lies in the hands of another journalist, Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), a cynical crime reporter with a drinking problem.

      The San Francisco police get involved when Zodiac, who previously attacked people in small Bay-area towns, kills a taxi driver in an upscale San Francisco neighborhood. Leading the investigation is David Toschi, a quirky detective incessantly eating animal crackers.  Mark Ruffalo’s Toschi is a cross between Columbo and a tough-guy cop – not surprising, since the real-life Toschi was reportedly the basis for Steve McQueen’s character in Bullitt.

      Toschi and Avery get drawn into the case, mounting parallel investigations that often run afoul of each other.  When Avery publicizes some investigative details, the police are flooded with hundreds of false leads.

      One of those leads does seem promising, but when fingerprints and handwriting analysis don’t bear out the suspect’s guilt, everyone is left again with lots of leads but no progress.  After a flurry of killings and letters from the Zodiac, the killer becomes silent. Eventually the public hysteria and interest dies down.

      Those who remain obsessed with the killings pay a high price.  Avery loses his job and spirals downward into alcohol and drug abuse. Toschi pushes things so far that his superiors transfer him out of homicide.  And Graysmith, who begins his own pursuit of the Zodiac only when others have given up, loses his family.  At least Graysmith (who in real life wrote the book the film is based on) finally does find a plausible killer.

      As Graysmith’s wife, Chloe Sevigny does a lot with a little.  She has little screen time and less dialogue, but makes the best use of silence and facial expression since Michelle Williams in last year’s Brokeback Mountain.

      Zodiac is a film lover’s treasure trove, with allusions to earlier films on the case as well as to a 1932 thriller, The Most Dangerous Game, which may have inspired the killer.  And one scene of Gyllenhal and Downey conferring in the Chronicle newsroom inevitably brings to mind the iconic partnership of Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in All the President’s Men.

      Both the film and the case are utterly absorbing.  But beware! As Zodiac makes clear, an obsession with the mystery can be as destructive as the murders themselves.

        This review appeared in the Aberdeen American News on March 4, 2007.

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This page last updated on February 11, 2007.