David Fincher’s Movie: Zodiac (Movie Review Sample)

David Fincher’s Movie: Zodiac
David Fincher’s movie Zodiac emerges as a quiet and dialogue-driven movie, based on the Zodiac murders that were largely unresolved in San Francisco in the 1960s. It fits well within the criminal justice genre, although the film appears to deviate from the normal trajectory of serial killers. Whereas a majority of the serial killers have a well-organized, cogent, and short-lived career, this is not the classical approach which Fincher takes in his film. The Zodiac victims have limited attributes in common because they are random and somewhat anarchic, a reason why the Zodiac killer in this film barely qualifies for the description of a serial killer as identified in the criminal justice system. Interestingly, the movie is narrated from the viewpoint of the investigator, although would think that it is the killer’s perspective. In criminal justice, one can only understand the mind and intentions of the serial killer by entering their frame of mind. This is not possible in the film because the investigator’s point of view is often filled with speculation on issues such as intent and modus operandi.
Opening of the film features a bloody a brutal killing which is followed closely by other murders. There are five killings in the opening scenes which the police believe might have been committed by Zodiac, although some of these are only attributed to him. It is reflective of the dangerous path that law enforcement agencies take when carrying out investigations of this kind. They often make generalizations an in the absence of concrete evidence, may use the criminal record of an individual to attribute some crimes to him or not. In the opening scenes, therefore, the film is reflective of the precise operational strategies in the contemporary criminal justice system. The killer completes his first series of murders within the first scenes, before he begins sending letters to the letters and the newspapers. This is merely speculative and rare in the criminal justice system because serial killers may insert themselves in the crime scenes as a means of ascertaining the perspectives that law enforcement officers have, but they rarely contact the press or even the police.