‘Zodiac’ Review
Based on the true story of one of the most intriguing unsolved crimes, ‘Zodiac’ is a thriller from David Fincher, director of ‘Se7en’ and ‘Fight Club’. We already knew David Fincher could craft the perfec
t serial killer movie.
Fincher and the screenwriter were smart in choosing not to distort the Zodiac story to adapt it a similar style as ‘Se7en’, instead they followed the true story right to the very end.
For decades the Zodiac killer terrorized the citizens of the San Francisco Bay area. Californians were not safe from this man who claimed he killed dozens of victims, however to this day it has never been verified that one person killed all those people.
SFPD Homicide Inspectors Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) were the officers assigned to the case. However the murders occurred over a wide area, and as the two tried to do their work they came across the dilemma of dealing with multiple police organizations.
This was back in the 1960s and 1970s, so the lines of communication were not as easy as they are today. FAX machines and the Internet were still a little way off in the future, and jurisdiction also came into play. Then letters started arriving at various locations. The San Francisco Chronicle received a letter from the killer with a cipher detailing his work. They were instructed to publish it, along with other newspapers that were each given separate ciphers. Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) was the reporter who took the story and ran with it.
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