'Zodiac': David Fincher's Own 'JFK' (or...How I Was Finally Able to Sleep After Watching 'Se7en')

Before I get into the review portion of this, well, review, I need to give you a little peek into my fragile psyche, when it comes to the oeuvre of David Fincher. What has become sort of a well-known secret among all of my friends has not, until now, seen the light of internet day. Here goes: Mr. Fincher’s "Se7en" is the scariest movie I have ever seen.

Let’s take a step back in time, shall we?

I saw the director’s second film with my mom and a comrade of mine when I was 14 years old, a wee lad just entering high school. From its grimy-brown cinematography—courtesy of Darius Khondji—and shockingly gruesome murders (how scribe Andrew Kevin Walker managed to complete his script without slitting his wrists first, I don’t know...nor do I want to know!!) based on the Seven Deadly Sins to the slow-building tension toward its tragic and terribly unsettling ("WHAT’S IN THE BOOOOX?!?!) denouement, "Se7en" was a horror movie that I just couldn’t wrap my young noodle around.

And not because the film was too outrageous. If only it were that simple. On the contrary, this movie was too much for me because it was so steeped in its own nightmarish reality. That, and one single fact that seared through my brain: There are people like John Doe (Kevin Spacey, in his least showy performance, but also his downright creepiest! Take that, Verbal Kint!!) who walk amongst us, every waking moment of our day!! And we don’t even know it when they brush by us!! I mean, that’s a helluva concept for a kid my age to grasp!!!

I shuffled out of the theatre with a morose, intense feeling of unease. See, my pops has always traveled a lot on business and, as it happened, he was out of town when we saw this particular flick. Needless to say, I reeeeeaaaalllllllly didn’t have any desire to come home to a dark, empty house with my mom, who’s only defenses against the dark forces of the world were our 15-year-old daschund, Snuffy, and her silly-looking-as-hell mouth piece (hey, the gal grinds her teeth in her sleep!! What is she gonna do, right?!). I went to bed and I lied awake until my alarm sounded off at 6:30am.

This went on for two months.

Yeah, I had an active imagination, back then. I still do. And yet—And YET!!—while it no longer instills the kind of sweat-inducing, profound fear within me that it once did, "Se7en" still holds a place in my memory, if only because it held such power over my life. Enough so, that I have entered each and every one of David Fincher’s movies with a sort of trepidation, as if I were taking one step at a time toward that wobbly edge of a high dive, where the metal bars of safety no longer exist.

Which brings me to his newest film about serial killing.

Late last night, I returned to my lonely little one-bedroom apartment, with much trepidation, after just having seen Fincher’s "Zodiac." I tell you no lies, people, when I write that the fear that "Se7en" held over me returned. But only ever so briefly. For reasons being that I’m older and wiser in my years, I was quickly able to overcome and discard those queasy feelings of dread that I had previously experienced from Fincher’s sophomore film. Of course, it could also be simply because I was able to look past my fears and recognize the film for exactly what it is: Brilliant.

Working from James Vanderbilt’s layered screenplay, Fincher and his crew have obviously done their homework, meticulously reenacting the real-life Zodiac murders in all of their horrific, detailed glory, as well as the recreating the look and feel of California as the famous serial killer butchered his way through the late ‘60s, into the mid ‘70s. In fact, with Harris Savides’ glossy, ghostly and breathtaking cinematography—the first part of the film has, yes, as critics have described, a nicotine-stained tint, while the second half is a little more colorful—sometimes, the whole cityscape seems to become a character of its own, not unlike the gloomy, unnamed city in "Se7en."

The performances are uniformly excellent as well, with Mark Ruffalo being the stand-out as Detective Dave Toschi. He’s so sincere in his performance and so likable that it killed me watching him go through from confident to desperate, as he endured pitfall after pitfall, dead-end after dead-end in the case. His imperfect hero is heartbreaking to watch as he’s left with few answers and countless more questions.

Robert Downey Jr., as chain-smoking, coke-snorting, alcoholic star reporter Paul Avery, is dynamite as well. However, this isn’t exactly a new role for him. No, I’m not referring to the actor’s substance-abuse problems of the past (well, I hope they’re in the past…but ya never know with Downey Jr. I thought he was clean and sober and then he made the decision to star on Ally McBeal….and then I knew his sobriety was too good to be true!! Oops! Did I say that out loud?!). Downey Jr. has made a career out of playing characters with hyper-kinetic, ADD-afflicted personalities, my favorite of these being the gay brother Tommy in "Home for the Holidays." Here, he’s essentially playing a darker, sadder version of the same variety. Don’t get me wrong, he’s stunning to watch in this film and, yeah, I agree with many of the critics that come awards time (gawd! I don’t even wanna think about that, right now!! I’m so award show-ed out!! Uncle!! UNCLE!!!!), he should be up for a supporting actor nomination, but it will be nice to see him play against type in the upcoming "Iron Man" superhero flick he’s signed on for.

As Robert Graysmith, the former political cartoonist who assigned himself to the Zodiac investigation after police had thrown their hands up in resignation as well as the writer of the book this film is based on, Jake Gyllenhaal gives the performance of his career bringing, like Ruffalo, a sincere desperation that, to me, kind of reminded me of Richard Dreyfus in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

And then there’s one other actor I’d like to give attention to. Some of you film buffs might remember John Carroll Lynch as Marge Gunderson’s sweetly lumbering husband in "Fargo." Here, his performance of a boogie man in-the-flesh is about as close to banal evil personified as I’ve seen in a movie. He plays Arthur Leigh Allen, the most well-known suspect in the Zodiac investigation and the one that Graysmith and Toschi believed, and this film speculates, was the Real Deal. I still get chills thinking about this actor’s portrayal. It’s damn-near one of the scariest things I’ve seen, brief though his onscreen time might be in this nearly three-hour opus.

Therein lies the one flaw of this movie.

At the end of the day, it’s a nearly three-hour movie about an unsolved investigation and, while speculation can be a fascinating thing, there are times when this movie feels like a three-hour movie. Oliver Stone’s "JFK"—the film that this movie most closely resembles—had the same problem: He made a big, star-studded movie with a lot of theories that may or may not be true. And let’s be honest, here…there’s really no other way for a filmmaker to end a movie like "JFK" or "Zodiac" other than to shrug and say, "well…you be the judge." And that’s fine, but it’s also a little anti-climactic; a bit of a let-down after all the pulse-pounding investigation that has come before it.

The truth is, we’ll never know.

And that’s also why this film is so marvelous. As one character explains, "Just because you can’t prove it, doesn’t mean that it’s not true." It’s the line that sums up the movie. No one—not Graysmith, Toschi, and certainly not Fincher and Vanderbilt—will ever know the real truth. This scary, sad, smart film is about four mens’ desperate, unsuccessful hunt for a killer and the toll that such a formidable task had on their souls.

You know, there was a time when David Fincher was a Director to Watch.

After this, as well as "Seven," "The Game," "Fight Club," and "Panic Room," it seems to me that, these days, he's one of the only filmmakers worth watching.