Release Date:  March 2, 2007
Rating:  R (for some strong killings, language, drug material and brief sexual images)
Genre:  Murder Mystery
Running Time:  160 min.
Director:  David Fincher
Actors:  Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Charles Fleischer, Brian Cox, Chloe Sevigny, John Carroll Lynch, Elias Koteas

An R-rated film about an infamous serial killer is the first great “family film” of 2007.

No, it’s not appropriate for anyone other than adults, but at its heart, Zodiac is about family values. Its main subject isn’t death, murder and crime, although those elements make up the bulk of its plot. Instead, the movie shows how we protect, or fail to protect, our children against a media onslaught that desensitizes and dehumanizes.

Zodiac reminds us that such concerns are longstanding. Beginning in the late '60s, the film shows the rise of media influence as the man who dubs himself The Zodiac Killer uses newspapers, radio and television to broadcast his demented ideas to as wide an audience as possible. In this, the film reminds us that the heritage of 1960s excess isn’t limited to sex and drugs, but extends to media saturation and sensationalism.

The film focuses on four characters, dominated by San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), who followed the case as it unfolded in his paper’s newsroom. The Chronicle was one of a few newspapers that received coded letters with demands and threats from the killer. A puzzle enthusiast, Graysmith pursues the case in his spare time, checking out books on code-breaking from his local library. He forms a bond with newsroom colleague Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), who reports on the case for the paper. As Avery spirals downward during the years that the killer remains on the loose, the clean-living Graysmith, who neither smokes nor drinks, finds himself addicted to his own efforts to break the Zodiac case.

The film also follows the work and family lives of two detectives: Inspector Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and Bill Armstrong (Anthony Edwards). Toschi is repeatedly awakened in the middle of the night by calls from his partner, as they doggedly pursue any and all leads in the case. As Toschi’s interest in the Zodiac descends into obsession, Armstrong’s pursuit is cut short by his realization that the case, and detective work in general, is taking too heavy a toll on his family life.

Adding support to the phenomenal cast is Brian Cox as lawyer Melvin Belli, drawn into the case by the Zodiac’s specific demands to speak with him, and Elias Koteas as Sgt. Jack Mulanax. John Carroll Lynch is unsettling as a chief suspect in the case, and Charles Fleischer—the voice of Roger Rabbit—gives a creepy performance as another person of interest in the case.