Zodiac: the Movie

I didn't know much about the Zodiac killer before seeing the movie Zodiac, with Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, and Robert Downey Jr.

Now I know a lot. Like a whole lot. Zodiac is nothing if not comprehensive. At 2 hours 38 minutes it better be. But it's also engaging, interesting, well-acted, well-directed, and scary at times.

The movie came out in early 2007 and didn't get a lot of attention. But its director is well known (Se7en, Fight Club, The Game, Panic Room) and it's stars all good. The movie mostly sticks with the cops and the press, but every so often shows us the Zodiac murders. As I realized later, it only shows those that the Zodiac is known to have committed (turns out the guy reads papers and takes credit for unsolved cases). These scenes can be difficult.

I also didn't know that the Zodiac killer was the inspiration for Dirty Harry.

There is a lot of attention to detail, and the film really gets what newspaper reporting and detective work were like before the computer and then Internet age.

This is a very good true crime film. Its length can be forgiven by the sheer fact that every time a new title card comes on the screen "18 months later" or "2 years later" you groan--not for yourself, but for the characters in the movie who have to survive so much.

Good stuff. But long.