BEFORE: OK, let's put the last two stinkers aside, and try to start up the serial killer chain again, for reals this time. I have a feeling I'll be sleeping with light on a lot this month, or perhaps waiting for the sun to rise before grabbing a few hours of sleep each morning. It's safer that way, don't you know.
Linking from "The Long Kiss Goodnight", Brian Cox carries over.
THE PLOT: A San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac killer.
AFTER: Best film of the week so far, I rather enjoyed this one, even though it was very long (2 hr. 37 min.), but hey, so was the Zodiac investigation. You can't expect them to trim that story down to fit into a 90-minute narrative. Besides the length, the only major problem with the film was the shift in central characters - the first third of the film focuses on reporters, the middle part focuses on policemen, and the final act goes back to the reporters, or at least one cartoonist-turned-novelist. At first this seemed disjointed, I kind of wish it had maintained one P.O.V., but I'm going to absolve the film of this sin by treating it like a three-act narrative.
I still endeavor to maintain a spoiler-free zone, so I won't comment on the end of the film - but it did send me to Wikipedia to check out the facts of the real Zodiac killer case. Those are public knowledge, and you're free to look those up as extra bonus content. With any film based on historical events, I tend to check the Wiki after to see in what ways a film might have tried to bamboozle me.
This much is fact: the Zodiac claimed 37 murders, but investigators only confirmed 7 as his kills. I guess with the other killings, Zodiac could have claimed them falsely, peppering his ciphers with information available from newspapers. Combine this with copycat killings, false leads and everyone in the San Francisco area suspecting their neighbors of being "the guy", and you can see how extensive such an investigation was forced to become. The S.F. police investigated more than 2,500 suspects over the years - so yeah, there might be a few creepy weirdos in the Bay Area.
I think this film may have appealed to me because it's about an obsessed cartoonist (hey, I know a few of those...) but also because it focuses so much on compulsion, and not just the kind that forces some people to kill. There's also the compulsion to solve a crime, to figure things out, to see what happens when you organize the data in a new way. One of the taglines for this film said, "There's more than one way to lose your life to a killer." - and I think that's the deeper lesson here. Whatever your "white whale" is, whether it's a criminal, or a record deal, or that novel or screenplay you want to write, it's all too easy to let that thing take over your life. Same goes for your career, or your hobby - especially if you collect rare mustard bottles or Barbie dolls. Don't forget to take some time off, go on vacation once in a while, read a book or just go to the park once a month.
Seeing two of the actors who appeared in "The Avengers" makes me want to shift over to superhero films - this would have been a great time to schedule a trip to the theater to see "Iron Man 3". But no, I'm playing the long game here, and my own particular compulsion demands that I stay on topic. Once I've finished with serial killers, hit-men and spies, I've got a sci-fi chain scheduled that should end neatly around the time of the new Superman film, and I'll pick up "Iron Man 3" then, along with the Batman and Spider-Man films that came out last year. (Arrgh - I could have connected back to serial killers through Christian Bale....no, no, I must be strong...) Two months away.
Also starring Jake Gyllenhaal (last seen in "Love and Other Drugs"), Robert Downey Jr. (last seen in "Charlie Bartlett"), Mark Ruffalo (last seen in "All the King's Men"), Anthony Edwards, Philip Baker Hall (last seen in "All Good Things"), John Carroll Lynch (last seen in "Crazy, Stupid, Love."), Chloe Sevigny, Elias Koteas, Dermot Mulroney (last seen in "J. Edgar"), Donal Logue (last seen in "Little Women"), with cameos from James Le Gros, Adam Goldberg, Clea Duvall, Charles Fleischer, and Jimmi "Kyle the Intern" Simpson.
RATING: 7 out of 10 late-night phone calls
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