The Zodiac

Not to be confused with David Fincher's upcoming similarly-themed Zodiac starring Jake Gyllenhaal, this drab little independent flick from writer-director Alexander Bulkley recounts the unsuccessful effort of a small-town cop in Northern California to track down the 1960s serial killer who murdered people seemingly at random, employing different MOs each time, using the titular nom de plume in elaborately encoded messages sent to the media. Although the film tries to mimic the docudramas about such monsters that have been a staple of television movies and miniseries for years, its technical limitations undercut its aspirations, resulting in a wan, pedestrian treatment of a notorious unsolved crime. The Zodiac basically follows two connected threads: one involves the obsessive search for the elusive killer by the young sergeant (Justin Chambers) assigned to the case after the first incident (the shooting of a teen couple on lovers' lane), while the other focuses on the effect the investigation has on the cop's family, poisoning his relationship with his wife and young son. Plagued by dull or overwrought performances and sloppy technical work (especially in the outdoor scenes—one murder sequence on a lakeshore looks as if it were shot by Ed Wood), The Zodiac is not recommended. (F. Swietek)