'Zodiac' An intelligent, disturbing film

This film about a San Francisco Bay area serial killer is a lightly fictionalized version of the true, unsolved crime, where the killer taunts police with his cryptic letters and messages over a period of about 10 years.

The plot is based on Robert Graysmith's book of the same name. Unlike most serial killer stories, this one places the focus on the search rather than the killer and on the lives and careers of the individuals who become obsessed with the case. These obsessions conspire to destroy many lives.

The directing of David Fincher avoids the trap of molding this film into an action thriller with Hollywood special effects and macho cop dialog. Instead, Fincher portrays a psychopathic killer who hunted people as a game and through a combination of his intelligence, police errors and dumb luck was never captured. Although claiming 37 victims, only seven were conclusively attributed to his hand. His victims were merely living out their uneventful lives when the Zodiac killer intersected their lives and killed them for sport.

It was somewhat surprising to find the absence of dramatic visual effects given the background of David Fincher in music video directing and films such as "Alien 3." His choices were much more restrained in visual effects that other film directors of similar backgrounds would deign to throw at the audience. However, Fincher allows the story to unfold through mood, dialog, a very linear plot, superb acting and an amazing array of subtlety through extraordinary cinematography and visual effects.

Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) plays a convincing part as an alcohol addled reporter who is obsessed with the case until he becomes a potential target of the Zodiac after insinuating the killer was a "latent homosexual."

Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a political cartoonist who picks up where Avery and the police left off. He somehow seems to solve the cryptic puzzles as his own life falls into disarray. It is his life and obsession that are the real human story framed by the murders and horror of the unfolding events.

Melvin Belli (Brian Cox) is larger than life and almost steals the film. He is contacted by Zodiac and torn between self preservation and his obsession for the limelight.

There were some fine acting, nice touches by other actors as well. Inspector David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) plays the part of an animal cracker connoisseur and the lead detective on the case. He is somehow convincing as a person who is both obsessed by the case and trying to figure out how to avoid having to deal with it.

The film has all the right ingredients for real nightmares. The murders are depicted with focus on the reactions of the victims who even as their lives flow from their bodies can't quite understand what is happening. There are the sounds of the shots and the impact of knives penetrating flesh that are over in an instant, yet they are coupled with building tension that is slow and elegant.

Technically the visual effects artists provide some incredible footage of overhead camera shots of a yellow taxi cruising through the streets and spectacular time-lapse images of the construction of the Transamerica tower.

The film is longer than the current norm running approximately two hours and forty minutes. Most will be watching for a sign that Zodiac (pun intended) is drawing to a close.

It seems likely that Zodiac will fail to achieve commercial success due to short attention spans and impatience. However, Zodiac is an intelligent, if disturbing, film that lays bare the effects of evil on everyone exposed to it.