The Zodiac

The real-life Zodiac killer, who terrorized the California Bay Area in the late 1960s, was never caught. That fact in itself renders the potential for a most compelling story. But if you're going to make a movie about this case, who or what does your movie focus on? You can't focus on the killer himself because you don't know who he is. This might seem like a problem for movie makers. But for a clever film producer the killer's anonymity presents an opportunity.

"The Zodiac" (2005) focuses on a fictional lead detective, a man named Matt Parish (Justin Chambers), his wife and his young, never smiling, son who fixates on his dad's detective work. The plot thus gets sidetracked onto this fictional family, their home life, and how this unsolvable case affects each of them. And we have lots of filler scenes with archival footage of the era, including the moon landing, Vietnam, Nixon, but precious little about the Zodiac. The film thus comes across as tedious, trite, and largely irrelevant, lacking suspense and tension.

Visually the film trends dark with a moody tone, both appropriate for the topic. Casting and acting are acceptable except for the annoying and unnecessary William Mapother. Cinematography and production design are competent. But the music is overly dramatic.

My impression is that the film's producers wanted to capitalize on this famous case with the word "Zodiac" in the title. The film could then show how the phantom killer, never seen, always in the background and obscured, could affect the lives of ordinary people in the community. The result is a mostly generic, opportunistic script that could be applied to almost any unsolved serial killer case.

This film either suffers from poor marketing or from having the wrong title; it's no more about the actual Zodiac killer than "Summer of Sam" was about the Son of Sam. It merely uses the infamous slayings as a backdrop for how a community, a police department, and one officer in particular were affected by the traumatic events.

Although most of the depictions of the murders were eerie and well-done, the real focus of the film is how the taunting nature of the killer and the lack of hard evidence plays havoc with the psyche of lead detective Matt Parish (Chambers). As the case wears on and the pressure mounts to catch the killer, Parish begins to distance himself from his caring wife (Prison Break's Tunney) and odd son (Culkin). Ironically it is near the end of the movie that we see one of the more dramatic scenes, when a drunken, frustrated Matt comes home to a locked house and orders his wife to leave the door unlocked, not to bow down to the psycho. She looks at him incredulously and screams at him, saying "he's still out there and he knows where we live". Matt stumbles out of the house, and a montage of the dramatic events that were taking place in the world at the time (moon landing, Vietnam, the Manson slayings) is run while the song "Time(Has Come Today)" by The Chambers Brothers plays. It leads up to a chilling scene of the killer donning his creepy hooded costume and committing one of his more heinous killings, viciously stabbing two lovers to death in a field in broad daylight. Powerful stuff.

Unfortunately the movie wraps up rather quickly after that, but it did leave some indelible moments. It was a serial killer flick from a different perspective, and I applaud the director for trying something new. "Time" will soon tell if David Fincher's soon-to-be re-leased version carries more weight and delivers on the killer's last words that he is "waiting for a good movie about me". This film may not be directly about him, but it's still pretty good.

Anyone who has spent any time at all studying the Zodiac murders will find this movie to be dull and pointless. They "hollywood-ize" the premise of the movie, while in the mean time, they cut out all the twists that make this story so intriguing. -They made no mention of Robert Graysmith (a very integral part to the investigation) -They didn't even attempt to give any history on the victims (especially that of Darlene Ferrin- that is of utmost importance) Overall, I feel that the movie can only be enjoyed by those who don't know better. It is on the other hand unfortunate, that the majority of people who watched this movie do not know better and believe that what was shown is the truth. I am looking forward to the 2007 "Zodiac" coming out. Hopefully they will get a few more things right.

There's nothing new or original, but it's a watchable film. You keep thinking they're going to reveal something big, or do something exciting - but they don't. It's not boring or annoying, it just isn't particularly entertaining.

Mainly it's a look at the Zodiac killer's doings and how they might have affected the detectives and their families who investigated the crimes. Serious, thoughtful, not exciting - there simply wasn't enough information to work with. No big clues about the Zodiac's identity, no major show of new evidence, zip, zilch, nada.

They could have at least livened it up with some sex scenes or grisly aspects of the murders (why else are we watching this stuff?) but that didn't happen. No half-naked bimbos running around screaming, no bloody special effects. The lead detective seemed somewhat frustrated by the lack of evidence, I was hoping for a good S&M sex scene between him and his wife, but no luck there.

Looks like the Zodiac got away again - this time from the director.

The Zodiac is one of the many films made on the famous San Francisco serial killer of the same name. This film got completely overshadowed by the David Fincher movie which is vastly superior, but this isn't a bad film at all, more like just adequate. I remember seeing this and pondering why everyone- at least the critics- hated it. You can give this one a shot, it isn't as bad as the ratings imply.