Zodiac vs Se7en

There’s always something a little gratuitous about a David Fincher movie. Maybe it’s in the violence, or the costuming, or the camera tricks. Maybe it’s a false ending, followed by a surprise ending. I liked Fight Club, but Brad Pitt’s character might as well have been named Gratuitous, for all his overindulgence and tacky hipster philosophizing. And punching.

With Zodiac, Fincher’s at it again, only this time, the gratuitousness includes things like details, storytelling and acting. Zodiac is overwhelming with things like accuracy, subtlety and intelligence. It gets so much right, and does so much so well, I wish it had been made a couple decades ago, so we could be seeing its influence in theaters now. Because the movies Zodiac is likely to influence are thrillers, and it has been a long, long time since I’ve seen one this moving, exciting or genuinely scary.

The Zodiac, as he called himself, was a serial killer in California in the sixties. And seventies. And maybe the eighties. And early nineties. He’d kill, then send a cryptic message to a local newspaper. He became a celebrity, inspiring a Dirty Harry villain, and I’m sure, many other movie killers like the ones in Se7en and Copycat. I’m glad Zodiac isn’t around killing today, because you know that freak wouldn’t be in the papers, he’d be online, blogging and updating his Facebook or whatever. He’d probably write a coded letter claiming to be the father of Anna Nicole’s kid. He’d probably vote like mad for his favorite American Idol, and prank call Howard Stern every morning. Oh, Zodiac, you gossipy bitch, you.

But Zodiac, the movie, wasn’t made in time to influence all the movies that Zodiac, the guy, did, so Fincher backtracks, and stages Zodiac like one of those great 1970s movies and cop shows, only with zero camp. Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards lead an incredible cast (like an alternate version of The Departed), as the principle cops on the Zodiac case. They have very little to go on; the Zodiac has left one witness who refuses to talk, and didn’t leave any usable personal evidence at the first crime scene. What he did instead was send a letter to a local paper, along with a puzzle. If the cryptogram didn’t run on the front page, the Zodiac would strike again. At the paper, Ruffalo and Edwards have two parallels in Robert Downey Jr. and Jake Gyllenhaal. Downey plays Paul Avery, a flamboyant, sharp reporter who encourages his editor to publish Zodiac’s letters at first out of a sense of trumping other papers. Eventually, he’s an aggressive investigator into the case, sometimes helping the cops, but more often than not making things more difficult. Gyllenhaal plays Robert Graysmith, a young cartoonist who cracks Zodiac’s codes for fun, and longs to play Robin to Ruffalo’s Batman. Graysmith is smart, but he’s no cop, and has access to little of the files and evidence readily available to the cops. It’s exciting to see him gather information, piece by piece, wondering if it’s possible that this horrific series of crimes might be solved not by San Francisco’s best, but by a cartoonist who can’t get his work in on time. Graysmith is the Clarice Starling of this piece, and even gets a terrifying trip into a Movie Basement of Crazy to prove it.

One of the criticisms of Zodiac you will hear is that it’s too long. As someone who watches 150 minutes of American Idol each week, I’m really in no position to give David Fincher the “wrap it up” gesture. Zodiac is long, but it’s meticulous, and even more important, entertaining. I’m sure there are cuts to be made, but what? Would you cut one of the clues or crimes, which spanned almost thirty years? Would you cut that breath-taking shot of the Golden Gate Bridge? Would you cut the chilling cameos by Ione Skye and Clea Duvall? Don’t tell me you’d cut Brian Cox. If you’d cut Brian Cox, I don’t think we can be friends. I say leave Zodiac as-is. In fact, I look forward to a DVD full of extras.

Zodiac is full of smart, tense moments. In an inspired move, Zodiac is played by one actor during the crime scenes, but different actors play the principle suspects. The cops and reporters don’t know for certain who did it, so it makes sense that we don’t get to either. The acting is subtle throughout, as the characters age, beaten down by these brutal unsolved crimes. Ruffalo is especially good, all world-weary and defeated, trying anything to get the Zodiac case solved, even if it means his own public humiliation. And Robert Downey Jr, my friends, rocks. I mean, I knew he would, but man. Let’s put it this way: no matter what movies Eddie Murphy has coming out, he won’t need an acceptance speech next year either.

So, David Fincher, you have come of age as a director. I’m sure you’ve still got some gimmicks up your sleeves—you were dying to push the camera through the doorknobs like in Panic Room, weren’t you? I bet you secretly wanted Anthony Edwards to be revealed as the Zodiac half way through the end credits, right? Feel free to bust some of that out in your next movie. It’ll be even more fun, knowing now you don’t have to.

That wasn’t always the case, of course. I rewatched Se7en the other night on TNT, or maybe TBS (whichever. There were commercials, which do Se7en no favors whatsoever.) It’s got all the gimmicks we expect our nineties thrillers to have: a surprise ending; a charismatic killer; gritty, stylish camera tricks, and Morgan Freeman as a mentor. It’s got a great cast, full of actors more famous now than they were then. Se7en stands a little taller than movies like Copycat or Kiss the Girls, but at this point, I’d say it’s more fun than scary, which is fine with me. As few movies as there are that don’t scare me, there are even fewer that show me a good time. Se7en, for all its doom and gloom about the evils of modern society, is a pretty good time.

I hadn’t seen it in a decade, so to recap: Brad Pitt is a new cop in City, which could be any urban wasteland, like the Detroit, New York, or Baltimore we see in movies from time to time. Instead, it’s just City, as in “I hate this City” and “How long have you lived in this City?” It’s hardly ever daytime, it’s always raining, everyone’s exhausted, and there’s a monstrous, detail-obsessed, well-spoken killer on the loose. Pitt’s partner is Morgan Freeman, who is too old for this shit, and will retire soon. Freeman is good, of course, but this was the first time he’d played this role (he’s played it many, many times since, with Ashley Judd and Ben Affleck, among others, standing in for Pitt), and the responsibility he feels toward City has become so burdensome he’s aging beyond his years. Gwyneth Paltrow is good too, as Pitt’s wife. She and Freeman have a touching, vulnerable scene in a diner that grounds the film in a reality it’s otherwise twisting into some sort of post-grunge-black-eyelinered-probably-inspiring-Marilyn-Manson-videos-bullshit. In a good way. When Paltrow tells Freeman her secret, he gives her a bit of advice that gives weight to every second remaining of the film.

Of course, the true star of Se7en is those brutal, stylized crimes (the killer is played by someone who’s a star now, but went uncredited at the time. I had forgotten about him, so I’m leaving him out of the review. He’s good, even though if he gets on your nerves he’ll remind you why with Se7en. It’s okay, he’s the villain. He gets on Brad Pitt’s nerves too.). The crimes are gimmicky, of course, but staged and photographed so maniacally by Fincher that I found myself searching the screen for clues (listen: you’ll either go along with this stuff or you won’t. One look at how I spell the movie’s title should clue you in on my thoughts.)

Full disclosure: I saw Se7en twice in theaters. The first time, in a mall, it left little impact. A few months later, in a run-down discount theater, during the scene where Pitt and Paltrow invite Freeman over for dinner, the film flipped. The entire scene played upside-down, with the sound fading in and out. For a film that has exactly one light moment—that one—having it literally turned on its head was enough to leave me completely unsettled the rest of the night. A decade later, Zodiac left me the same way, on a mega-screen with perfect sound. That’s progress, right?

Zodiac: A
Se7en: B+