Film

Review of "Zodiac" directed by David Fincher, written by James Vanderbilt
rating ****

Officially the murders in the late 60s and early 70s attributed to the Zodiac killer are unsolved. This film, based on the book by the same name by Robert Graysmith, puts forth a good case for identifying the best suspect.

From an entertainment standpoint, this film does an excellent job of keeping the suspense going from start to finish. The murders are gruesome but shot with restraint. The killings are portrayed in chronological order with factual information regarding time and place superimposed on the screen. This gives the film some level of authenticity.

There are basically three storylines: the official police investigation, the newspaper’s reporting of the crimes and subsequent printing of letters from the killer, and Robert Graysmith fascination with the case. Since the film is based on Graysmith’s book, his viewpoint is the predominant one.

All leads seem to point to one suspect. When the police finally gather enough circumstantial evidence to get a search warrant, the suspect is cleared, mostly on the basis of a hand writing analysis and a lack of physical evidence. The trail runs cold. The case is kept alive through the efforts of Robert Graysmith.

The last thirty minutes of the movie are a little confusing as several additional suspects are introduced and then forgotten, without fully explaining why. The most convincing scene is when Robert Graysmith puts forth a time line of the prime suspect’s whereabouts in connection with the killings, phone calls, and letters.

Despite the the evidence, in the end there is nothing to tie the prime suspect to the killings. DNA evidence done on a letter from the actual Zodiac killer does not match the suspect.

Little effort was put into giving much historical context. The soundtrack is almost non existent, as if they decided to use imitation music rather than pay royalties for popular songs of the time period. The DVD is sorely lacking: no commentary, nothing on the real Zodiac case.

Review of Alpha Dog written and directed by Nick Cassavetes
rating **

The underlying story of a kidnapping that may or may not have been a kidnapping that turned into a murder is an interesting one. But the end result here is a missed opportunity.

The writer/director uses two different methods to tell the story. He uses interviews with key individuals documentary style. And he tells the story directly through the characters. He could have completely cut out the documentary scenes and would have made an improvement right there.

Everything about this film feels excessive. The language is excessive. There couldn’t have been a single page of script that didn’t have at least twenty cuss words. Sure kids this age use foul language, but every other word? Much of the acting was excessive. There’s having an argument, having a loud argument, being really mad, then there’s this movie where everyone screams at each other.

The majority of the women are portrayed as sex objects and nothing more. The parents are portrayed as unfit to parent, but they are written over the top so that they become caricatures of bad parenting and not real people, which they were.

The best performances for me were the understated ones. Justin Timberlake was one of the few characters who didn’t scream every line. Emile Hirsch who portrayed Johnny Truelove gave a great performance. Anton Yelchin who played fiftee-year old Zach also gave a good performance.

The best scenes were the ones where there were only two or three characters on screen. Unfortunately, there weren’t very many of those.

I saw the movie on DVD. There is a weak making of documentary but no audio commentary and nothing on the real people who were involved.

My list of top ten nonfiction films is available from the link to the right. Have some films that you think should be included?