Reviews by Matt

If you have ever taken a once a week class, then you know how slow those three hours go by even if the class is interesting. Every now and then something interesting will peek your interest, but there are large chunks of time you feel like whacking your head repeatedly against your desk. Take that feeling and add in a dark theater, huge screen and surround sound and you will have my “Zodiac” experience.

“Zodiac” is based on the book of the same name written by Robert Greysmith about the killings in the San Francisco area in the late 1960’s and early 70’s. After a July 4th killing, papers in and around San Francisco received notes and coded messages from a man claiming to be the killer. The papers were told to run the coded message or he will go on a killing spree. Greysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) a cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle and the Crime Reporter, Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) become obsessed with cracking the case and finding the killer’s identity.

A warning for those who want to go see this movie; you will feel every single of the 156 minuets of this movie. It is very long and not a lot happens. The first 20 minuets are when the only actual killing happens. Then there is a long time of letter getting, false accusations, and a ton to theorizing. Then it picks up toward the end and you finally get to go home and tell you family that you were not kidnapped, you just went to a movie and it is safe to call off the search party.

It could have been a lot shorter. There was a lot of information spread out over a very long time span. All of it was important information, but it did not seem to lead to a big revelation for a very long time. The actual case of the Zodiac killer took place over the course of more then 20 years. There were periods of 4-5 years where the Zodiac was not heard from. Much of the movie deals with the letters that the paper received from the Zodiac and the cops narrowing down the possible suspects. The big breaks in the case are few and far between. Not a ton of action, no shoot-outs and no chase scenes to break up the monotony of all the characters talking.

The excessive time length aside, this is a good movie. It is, at its core, a 2-hour character drama. All involved in the case, cops or reporters, are affected by the Zodiac; Avery turns to drugs and alcohol when he is targeted in a letter by the Zodiac, Greysmith’s marriage suffers when he becomes obsessed with finding out who Zodiac is, William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards), on of the cops assigned the case gets transferred because he cannot deal with the case. They become victims of the Zodiac. They may not lose their lives, but in some cases they lose their livelihoods.

The most interesting relationship of the movie goes to Avery and Greysmith. Though Avery likes and trusts Greysmith, he doesn’t let that get in the way getting him with a quick one-liner. Greysmith is, for lack of a better term, wound tight. He has no friends outside of work and spends a lot of time working on puzzles. Avery on the other hand is a “fly by the seat of your pants” type. He is not afraid to step on the toes of the cops and there are a few funny clashes between him and the cops on the case. Greysmith has a more methodical approach. He works on the clues he has and bases his questions and actions on what he finds. It is this relationship that saves you from wish the Zodiac would burst into the theater and kill you, the sarcasm, because that would be less time-consuming.

The only weak point in “Zodiac” is the runtime. It could have been cut down in some places and nothing would have been lost, but it is the performances that keep the move from being a waste of time. If you have some time to kill, go see it. Just make sure it is an early time, because you may end up spending the majority of your afternoon in a dark movie theater.

7 out of 10
Rated R for some strong killings, language, drug material and brief sexual images.
Runtime: 158 min