Saturday 7 May 2016

Freeview film of the day : saturday 7th of May

ZodiacZodiac (2007 151min.) [BBC2 10.50pm]

Crime drama based on a true story, starring Mark Ruffalo, Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr. San Francisco, 1969: following a series of homicides, a cryptic message is delivered to the offices of a local newspaper. It is the first in a series of letters that taunt Inspector David Toschi and his team who are on the trail of a serial murderer. It also launches the paper's cartoonist Robert Graysmith on an obsessive quest of his own to find the Zodiac killer.

In terms of serial-killer movies, you could hardly get more of a contrast to the so-called "torture porn" subgenre than David Fincher's engrossing account of the hunt for the Zodiac Killer, who terrorized San Francisco in the 1970s.

The period setting is recreated here impeccably and without cliché. There's a horrible murder and some grim moments but it's a long way from the Grand Guignol of Fincher's own Se7en, and mostly the film concentrates on the effect of the long-running, unresolved case on the lives of the investigators.

Robert Downey Jr is the dandyish reporter, Jake Gyllenhaal an earnest cartoonist who deciphers the psycho's coded messages and Mark Ruffalo (all sideburns and shockingly bad 1970s haircut) is the cop who was the inspiration for Dirty Harry.

The film sticks with the characters long after other, more sensationalist movies would have given up and gone home.


And there's inspired use of Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" very early on in the film -

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