Movie Review - Zodiac

I went to Zodiac Monday night. While interesting, I found the movie to be excessively long (2 hours 40 minutes) and disconnected. Zodiac follows the amateur detective work done by Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle, to solve the Zodiac murders. It also presents an interesting case of who the Zodiac killer might be.

All the violence in the film occurs in the first hour of the film, and I didn't necessarily find it to be extremely intense or scary. "Spooky" is a better adjective.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays the film's protagonist. Throughout the movie he's depicted as just a "good guy", a "boy scout" who wants to solve the case out of the goodness of his heart. Unfortunately, the character doesn't have much of a personality for the viewer to attach to, and at the end I didn't feel quite satisfied with the film. He's seen neglecting his family and work responsibilities to continue his detective work, and I for one wasn't surprised when his wife takes their children and leaves. Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. are great in their supporting roles.

Overall, the film wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. If you see this in the theater, don't pay for it (I didn't - I was on a date!). The biggest problem with the film is that it fails to show why the characters were obsessed with solving the case. The viewer is assumed to just accept the characters' obsession without given a strong reason to do so.

At best, it's "true crime" trying to be both honest and sensationalized. If I wanted to learn about the Zodiac killer, I could have watched a Discovery Channel special and not only learned more, but have been more entertained.