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ZodiacFile it under: serial killer flick/brief on behalf of a just, liberal society.

By Elbert VenturaPosted Monday, Jan. 7, 2008, at 7:33 AM ET

Read more about Zodiac in Slate's Movie Club.

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In their final scene together, Graysmith delivers to Toschi a tour-de-force presentation of his theory that Allen is, in fact, their man. He marshals all the elements of the case against Allen: the same military-style boots that Zodiac was known to wear, the same size gloves and shoes, the tendency to misspell the same words, even a Zodiac-brand wristwatch with the same logo that the killer uses in his letters. But Toschi points out that while Graysmith's narrative sounds convincing, his case is built entirely on circumstantial evidence and wouldn't hold up in a court of law. Graysmith pleads with him to not think about the case like a cop. But Toschi cuts him off:

Graysmith isn't the only foil for Toschi and his deliberate style of crime-fighting. Fincher also implicates pop culture in his political critique, with the appearance of a different cop: Dirty Harry. After the Zodiac investigation winds down, Toschi attends the San Francisco premiere of Clint Eastwood's 1971 movie, which was based on the Zodiac killings. Dirty Harry is our fantasy of what a cop like Toschi should be. Confronted by bureaucratic thickets, the steely Harry sneers, "The law is crazy." His shoot-first-ask-questions-later style is condemned by his superiors, but is shown to be quick and effective. At the end of the film, Harry guns down the killer and throws his badge away—a final repudiation of a legal system that moves too slowly for him. Unencumbered by the law, Dirty Harry gave the audience the payoff the real world had denied. Toschi can't abide its vision of law enforcement and walks out of the movie:

Harry Callahan, it's worth noting, isn't the only movie cop connected to Toschi. Although it's only mentioned in passing in Zodiac, Toschi was also the model for Steve McQueen's character in the 1968 movie Bullitt. The San Francisco-set police drama featured one of the greatest car chases ever filmed and ended with Bullitt shooting the bad guy. Zodiac's Toschi isn't entirely immune to the appeal of glamour. His natty outfits and custom-made holster (which was copied by McQueen) attest to that. But in Fincher's film, he always remains grounded in the messy, mundane world of being a real detective.

Instead of Bullitt and Dirty Harry, Zodiac gives us Toschi and Armstrong, men who go about their business in a diligent, dignified manner. Their commitment to due process may not be sexy—it may even lead to the bad guy getting away—but the movie argues implicitly that sticking to that course is necessary. Like Toschi, Zodiac has little use for pop vigilantism and extra-legal tactics. A stoic, even moving, affirmation of the liberal society's values, Fincher's movie is a needed corrective in a world in which the invocation of Jack Bauer at a Republican debate wins loud applause.