Zodiac (2007) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  David Fincher

Starring:  Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey, Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox, Dermot Mulroney, John Carroll Lynch, Ione Skye, Donal Logue, Chloe Sevigny

The Zodiac killer was never caught.  David Fincher's Zodiac takes us through the painstaking investigation in which leads materialized and then evaporated.   Dead ends were not only common, but expected.   The San Francisco detectives in charge of the case, David Toschi (Ruffalo) and Bill Armstrong (Edwards) tirelessly work to no avail.  Cynical, alcoholic reporter Paul Avery (Downey, Jr.) writes stories on the Zodiac killer's letters which were sent to the San Francisco Chronicle taunting the police and the press.   Cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Gyllenhaal) shadows Avery, attending editorial meetings as an outsider who doesn't get a seat at the reporter's table, but also develops an obsession with the case which leads to a dangerous investigation and a book on the Zodiac killer years later.  

Zodiac captures the frustration over the police's inability to crack the case and manufactures suspense even though we know the outcome.   The detectives and journalists in the film aren't crusaders, but doggedly determined to catch the killer before he strikes again.   When Graysmith takes center stage many years after the last Zodiac murder, he is obsessed to the point that his wife (Sevigny) leaves him and he takes greater risks to his safety when following up on leads, one of which leads to an eerie encounter in a basement where we fear for his life, even if he doesn't.

Fincher directs with an ominous atmosphere and an impressive overhead shot of the Golden Gate Bridge enveloped in clouds hammers this home.  The performances are grounded in professionalism and realism.  Toschi became famous outside of the Zodiac case acting as a consultant on Bullitt and as one of the detectives on whom Dirty Harry was based.   Toschi and Dirty Harry couldn't be more opposite.  When Toschi skips out on the Dirty Harry premiere and is told the ending, he utters disagreeably, "Nothing like due process,"  Even after all the Zodiac killer has done to make his life and others miserable (or others suffering a worse fate), the fact that Toschi believes in due process makes a grander statement.  

It also is a double-edged sword when he is 100 percent convinced he found someone he likes for the murders and the evidence doesn't pan out.   Toschi's and Graysmith's investigations lead to a creep named Arthur Leigh Allen (Lynch), who circumstantially is believed to be the killer, but there is that small detail called proof which allows Allen to evade accountability.  Toschi says to his captain, "I don't know if I want Allen to be the guy because he's the one or because I just want this to be over,"  Fincher's point in the intelligent, complex Zodiac is that nearly everyone associated with the case felt the same way.