Back in the day when we had competing high def formats, Paramount went exclusively with the one that wasn’t Blu-ray. Executives were finally approached by a man in a hood with a zodiac symbol scribbled on his chest and they’ve finally put the David Fincher true story chiller out on Blu-ray.
In 1969, the city of San Francisco quaked in fear when a masked killer began a rampage that resulted in five known deaths. The killings stopped just as suddenly as they began. The killer shared some similarities with a famous past killer, Jack the Ripper, in that he was never caught or brought to justice. Jack disappeared into the London fog and the Zodiac vanished into the California haze.
He, like Jack, also sent letters to the local paper that fueled the public’s frenzy that the killer be caught. Cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) was working at the San Francisco Chronicle at the time and would become obsessed by the case. Chronicle reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey, Jr.) would be the reporter to actually cover the case, but Graysmith would continue his amateur detecting.
The official cop on the beat would be inspector David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and all three men would be immensely changed by their pursuit of the killer.
Graysmith’s investigations would lead him to Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch), whom he would implicate in the book he later wrote, but nothing definite would come from it and the killer is still “at large” to this day.
Director David Fincher has crafted a wonderful film from Graysmith’s book and it has the feel of those classic crime dramas. The California setting also puts me in mind of Dirty Harry and some of the classic 1970s films.
This film is based on Graysmith’s book and takes his idea as to who the killer is/was, but new theories crop up from time to time as to who else might be the one behind the mask. As lately as August 2008, another name has been added to the list of those suspected of being the Zodiac.
Perhaps even more eerily is that he could still be out there somewhere. Since the mystery has never really been solved, it has the fascination that Jack the Ripper still has. I don’t take Fincher’s film to be gospel, but it’s a fascinating yarn and excellent film based on the experience of Graysmith.
The cast is uniformly excellent and the time period is captured to perfection. Speaking of perfection, the high def picture also is a wonder to behold. I didn’t get the HD DVD version, Zodiac was one of the last titles to come out on the format, but this Blu-ray looks fantastic.
Zodiac is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (2.35:1). Disc one features two commentary tracks. The first is with director David Fincher and the second is with actors Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey, Jr., producer Brad Fischer, writer James Vanderbilt, and author James Ellroy.
Disc two’s special features are all presented in high def. It’s divided into two sections. The first is “Film” and features the 54-minute “Zodiac Deciphered,” a multi-part documentary on the making of the film and the care and reality that was injected into it. Next is the 15-minute “Visual Effects of Zodiac” that examines the computer effects for the film.
The “Previsualization” section takes 3 scenes (Blue Rock Springs 1 minute, Lake Berryessa 4 minutes, and San Francisco 1 minute) and shows you the computer created visualization of the scene and the final product in split screen. Finally, this section contains the 2-minute theatrical trailer.
The “Facts” section contains the 1 hour 42 minute “This is the Zodiac Speaking” documentary about the case and interviews various law enforcement officers in the case (excluding Toschi, who is seen in the making of doc) and the two surviving victims, Michael Mageau from Blue Rock Springs and Brian Hartnell from Berryessa Lake.
Next is the 42 minute “Prime Suspect: His Name was Arthur Leigh Allen” which examines Graysmith’s prime suspect, but also talks to some people who don’t think it was him. That there was some new suspect presented last year it’s somewhat disappointing that Paramount didn’t shell out some coin to maybe make a short featurette on recent events in the case.
Zodiac is a fantastic film and only is made to shine brighter on Blu-ray. Those HD DVD owners who still keep their players for this film can count another strike against that technology. The film looks excellent on Blu-ray and maybe even the Zodiac will be out buying a copy, cast a strange look at the person next to you in the checkout line.
Zodiac [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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