Zodiac Review

Even though the movie Zodiac was released over a year ago in theatres, it need not be forgotten. Based on the Bay Area killings in the 1960s, Zodiac tells the chilling story of a serial killer and one man’s hunt to find out the truth. On July 31, 1969, a letter arrived at the offices of the San Francisco Chronicle with the handwritten order: "Please rush to editor!" The contents of that letter would terrorize the residents of the San Francisco Bay Area, and would forever change the lives of three men: Detective Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo), crime reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), and, perhaps most unlikely of all, political cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal). Inside the envelope was the first letter from the serial killer who became known as the Zodiac killer. In addition to the handwritten letter, the envelope contained one-third of a cipher. The other two parts had been sent to two other papers. In that letter, Zodiac took credit for two recent murders of young couples, which had left two women and one man dead.
The cipher confused every major law enforcement agency, but it was solved by a Salinas history teacher and his wife (three other ciphers sent by Zodiac have never been deciphered). However, it was Graysmith who put together one of the first important clues to the killers MO: the cipher referenced a 1932 film called The Most Dangerous Game, about a man on a remote island who hunted people as prey. Zodiac was such a clever killer that he managed to elude police for over two decades. His threats to blow up school buses or to shoot out the tires of buses and then "pick off the little kiddies as they come bouncing off the bus" paralyzed the city, forcing police car and plane escorts for the city's schoolchildren.
Based on the books Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked -- books written by that quiet cartoonist, Graysmith, Zodiac will be, without a doubt, one of the best films of 2007. While the length of the movie (160 minutes) can seem a bit long, the plot moves fast with great twists and moments of suspense. This movie is great for True Crime lovers, for the movie takes great care of all the details of the murders and the daunting task that it was to try and find the killer. For an added bonus, Santa Rosa is mentioned, for the lead suspect lived in a trailer within the county lines.
Rated R for some strong killings, language, drug material and brief sexual images.