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Volume 72, Issue 105,
Monday, March 5, 2007
Life & Arts ‘Zodiac' is as hard to navigate as the stars Film on infamous San Francisco-area killings in the 1960s confuses audience with multiple viewpoints by JAKE HAMILTON
Director David Fincher has constantly proven that he works best when the mood is right and the focus is extremely narrow. Such as the still silence of the infamous box sitting on the ground in the desert in Se7en, or the claustrophobic, shadowed, blood-drenched basement acting as a battleground for the guys in Fight Club. While his newest achievement Zodiac is a good film and an excellent character study, its epic scope that covers four decades worth of material through the eyes of several different characters does not fit with the director's style, making for a good movie but a disappointing Fincher movie. Based on the infamous killings of the Zodiac killer in San Francisco, Fincher steers away from focusing on the killer himself (much like he did with John Doe in Se7en) and instead focuses on the obsessions of the men trying to catch him. Lasting nearly three hours, the film's first hour is the best. It balances the murders of the killer himself (including a truly disturbing one that takes place by the lake) with the San Francisco Chronicle trying to decide how to handle the madman's requests, along with the media's newfound obsession with their very own personal monster. After that, the killer takes a backseat to the police's investigation and their struggles with handling jurisdiction problems as several different crimes took place in several different counties. The film lacks the Fincher-feeling to it. If one thinks about his best films, each one has its own definite personality to it, a mood that you get put in by watching it or even having someone mention it. With Fincher's vast scope with Zodiac, it's quite impossible for it to be focused enough to ever maintain a definite mood, as it continuously jumps in variables from minutes to even years. His admirable attempt at trying to cover the events from the eyes of so many different characters keeps the audience from really connecting with any of them, thereby preventing the audience from truly becoming enveloped in the moment like the rest of his films have allowed. As with most of Fincher's films, the performances are all amazing. Though lacking screen time, Robert Downy Jr. is superb as crime reporter Tom Avery, turning in one of the best performances of his career. Jake Gyllenhaal continues to prove that he is one of the most solid young actors in Hollywood. Mark Ruffalo does the best he can with what he has, but is never really allowed any time for the audience to see him as anything other than a cop. Though it may not be what some expect from a Fincher film, the movie still succeeds at maintaining the interest of the audience throughout its nearly three-hour running time. For those who don't know much about these events, the details of the crimes and the investigation will be enough to allow you to just pay attention, even if you aren't being entertained. Zodiac is an admirable effort for Fincher and he
should be commended for trying to do something outside of the box from
which he has grown so comfortable. Still, his best films lie not in the
actions, but the moments, and Zodiac simply provides too few of them.
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