David Fincher’s $87M True Story Crime Movie Is Pretty Accurate, But Expert Calls Out One Mistake

David Fincher‘s $87 million crime movie based on a true story is pretty accurate, but an expert has called out one mistake made during a particular part. Fincher is known for creating a number of engaging crime thrillers, with plenty of memorable moments throughout his career. The ending of 1995’s Se7en, his first crime film, has become a classic part of cinematic history, informing many of the other works he’s made since. This includes his 2014 adaptation of Gone Girl, as well as his most recent film, The Killer, following a hitman after a job gone wrong.

However, his fascination for serial killers has permeated his career ever since Se7en was released, a concept that made its way into some of his later work. This includes the Netflix series Mindhunter, wherein he served as executive producer, following two FBI Agents in their Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) interviewing serial killers. While Mindhunter season 3 never came to fruition, it emphasized the filmmaker’s interest in the subject, even when exploring real figures. It also served as the basis for another memorable movie in his career.

Zodiac Is Extremely Accurate To Real Life, Except For 1 Key Scene

How An Important Character Decision Is Unrealistic

One of Fincher’s most memorable movies of his career is 2007’s Zodiac, following a team of detectives and reporters working together to uncover the identity of the infamous Zodiac Killer. While the film underperformed at the box office, earning only $84.7 million against a $65-85 million budget, it was praised critically for its historical accuracy, writing, and characters. The movie also appeared on many lists as one of the best films of that year, later being nominated for a variety of awards following its release.

Speaking with Insider on their series How Real Is It?, former homicide detective Pat Postiglione confirmed Zodiac is mostly accurate in its depiction of the killer and investigation. At 13:30, he analyzes a scene wherein two victims are confronted by the killer, explaining how well the scene showcases the organized way in which he targeted his victims. However, he’s critical of the crime scene investigation, which sees Mark Ruffalo’s Inspector Dave Toschi pick up a bullet casing with a pencil, which wouldn’t happen in real life. Check out what Postiglione had to say below:

The Zodiac Killer has been around since the 1970s, killing people periodically and then sending little notes to other people, admitting that he’s the one that did that. This scene depicts real Zodiac victims, Brian C. Hartnell and Cecilia Shepard. Brian C. Hartnell survived the event and was able to provide key details about his encounter with the Zodiac killer.

When we look at these cases, these serial cases, we have to look at two different things, whether we’re dealing with a organized killer or whether we’re dealing with a disorganized killer. With the Zodiac, I think he’s more of an organized versus a disorganized. I mean, it seems like he has a plan in place. It’s not something that happens spur of the moment.

I think that’s the key. Most of the serial killers I’ve dealt with fell into the category of disorganized. When they find their victim, it sometimes happens when they were not maybe expecting it. So they go ahead and take advantage of the situation, victim at the wrong place at the wrong time kind of a deal. The disorganized killer is just that, disorganized. When you get to a crime scene, it’s kind of all over the place. There’s things strewn about.

That’s not going to happen, when he picked up the 9 mm shell casing and picked it up and took it away from the victim and took it outside the car. Because you don’t want to contaminate, you want to leave it exactly where it was, exactly how was observed. It’s photographed, it’s videotaped, and then it’s collected by the crime scene investigators, not by the detective. The crime scene is a sacred ground, and you have to preserve everything there. You don’t want to touch anything, you don’t want to move anything. He stuck, looked like a pencil or something in there. And I mean, you can use an item similar to that where you can slide it inside the casing to lift it up. This way, nothing is touched on the casing itself, whether you know, because you’re hopeful to get DNA off that casing when the person loaded the weapon. In theory, there’s a fingerprint on there, possibly belonging to the suspects. My experience has been, they’ll typically use a weapon that may not leave a casing. For example, they may use a revolver, where there’s no casings involved.

Other than the picking up the shell casing, I would give it probably an eight.

What Zodiac’s 8 Out Of 10 Accuracy Says About The Movie

It Retains Mostly Faithful Details About The Serial Killer & Investigation

Given Fincher‘s history creating crime thrillers and realistic movies, it’s no surprise Zodiac managed to earn a high accuracy score from Postiglione. While the handling of the crime scene itself wasn’t as realistic as it could have been, the inclusion of the killer himself added to the level of realism on display in the movie. This makes the film more engaging because the events depicted likely played out similarly in real life, explaining why it’s been praised since release for its historical accuracy and overall presentation.

Source: Insider/YouTube

Zodiac

Release Date

March 2, 2007

Runtime

157 minutes

Writers

James Vanderbilt