It seems like there were dozens of "Jaws" rip-offs in the late seventies. Killer Orcas, Grizzlies, and in this film, genetically modified piranha that can strip a man to the bone in minutes. This was an exploitation picture that launched the career of director Joe Dante. It has only a little of the sideways humor that characterizes his best films, but it does try to keep the audience engaged with frequent piranha victims every few minutes.
The formula is a clear set of beats stolen from "Jaws". We start with a titillating experience that results in death, followed up by a slow discovery of what is happening, and then a series of denials of reality by officials. One of the main differences is that the obnoxious character who is trying to dismiss the whole thing, gets a comeuppance, unlike the mayor in the shark movie.
Bradford Dillman was a seventies staple as a suspicious official or businessman, and he was in a ton of TV shows of the era. Here he plays a drunk hermit like loser, who hets turned into an action hero for no particular reason. Heather Menzies, who played one of the Von Trapp children in "The Sound of Music" and Strother Martin's daughter in Sssssss, is a bounty hunter who gets caught up in the action, and veteran horror icon Kevin McCarthy starts a long association with director Dante, playing a crazed scientist. Don't ask why there is a small lizard man walking around the laboratory in the early part of the film. It never becomes important and it is simply a loose thread.
"Piranha" is an efficient, low budget fright film. The film makers do the best they can with their resources and imaginations. Although many consider it a cult classic, it simply feels standard for the times. But of course those were my times so I loved it.
I have to admit something here that is a repeat of a prior realization. I really like sports movies about sports that I have no interest in otherwise. My favorite sports films over the years have been hockey films, but I have never been to a hockey game and I think I may only have watched a complete one, once on television. Auto racing will take a close second place. I have no desire to spend a day in the stands watching cars drive by at high speeds, but I am more than willing to spend a couple of hours in a movie theater doing the same thing. In the last decade I have seen, "Ford vs. Ferrari", "Rush" and "Gran Turismo", and enjoyed them far more than I would expect given my disinterest in motor sports. You can now add "F 1" to the list.
This movie is pretty conventional from a plot point of view. A talented driver, who missed a shot at the biggest prize in his field, gets a chance at redemption, but must compete with a younger version of himself to succeed. It helps that the star is charismatic and Brad Pitt fills the bill on all counts. He is incredibly watchable, even in a helmet that hides eighty percent of his face. I have seen this movie compared to "Days of Thunder", largely because the plot points are not dissimilar and that film also relied on star power to give the audiences what they want.
The biggest success of this movie however is making the technology behind Formula One racing, feel accessible to outsiders and novices like me. I have known plenty of gearheads in my life, but I have never been one of them. You add a layer of mechanical engineering and physics to the mix, and suddenly the garage is more of a laboratory and a lot more interesting. Director Joseph Kosinski made "Top Gun Maverick" a couple of years ago, and it is clear he knows how to get the best out of action scenes in vehicles. The camera work and editing of the races is thrilling and envelops you with tension and excitement. This is one of the most entertaining films of the year.
It is not my intention to slight the other actors in the movie, they are fine. I think Damson Idris has a bright future in films, but Pitt is the show here and if you are not a fan, you could easily become one. This is a movie star, action driven, summer blockbuster that pushes all the right buttons and fives us the thrills tha we want for a couple of hours, without having to sit through a whole race. Like hockey films, these racing movies cut out all the stuff that non-fans don't care about, and feeds us the dessert served with a little movie star sauce on the top.
Most of the entries coming up will be brief, I am still trying to catch up on posts for all the theatrical screenings in the last couple of weeks. I cannot however, skimp on my opinions about this particular film. "Zodiac" has been one of our family favorites since we saw it in it's original theatrical release. Over the years, it has become a default movie for us. Whenever we have trouble deciding what we should watch , someone inevitably suggests "Zodiac" as an alternative and nine times out of ten, we are watching it again. This screening at the Paramount Theater was the first time I have seen it in a theater since 2007, and it is the first time since I started blogging, that it gets included on this project.
I was eleven years old when the Zodiac killings started drawing press attention across the state of California. So I was old enough to be aware of the story, but still young enough that it did not obsess me the way that it did the characters portrayed in the story. Robert Graysmith , as portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal, is a cartoonist for a San Francisco newspaper, one that received messages from the killer. His tangential connection lead to an intense desire to know who the killer was, and he wrote the book this movie is based on. Director David Fincher, portrays the writer as an innocent bystander, watching the horror play out around him. Gyllenhaal looks like a baby-faced kid among the police and newspaper professionals that surround the case. His sincerity is achingly displayed on his face as he asks questions of his colleague Paul Avery, who is covering the Zodiac for the paper. Avery is played by a pre-Iron Man Robert Downey Jr. Avery is also presented as an obsessive, but his pursuit is more professional and it consumes him in a different way than Graysmith.
The third leg of the tripod that the story of the investigation rests on is Dave Toschi, a police inspector in charge of the S.F. part of the investigation. Mark Ruffalo plays Toschi as an overwhelmed professional, frustrated by jurisdictional impediments and inconsistent evidence. The two newspaper guys supplement and interfere with his task, but ultimately, it is Toschi who gets to chillingly interrogate a suspect that seems to fit the information that they have. All three of these men get moments of horror as they confront individuals or places that may be a key to solving the crimes. Downey Jr. is playing a character who descends into alcohol and drug use as his paranoia and professional life collide. There is an honesty about those destructive forces that may be a reflection of his real life struggles in the years that preceded this film. Ruffalo seems to be calmly frustrated reacting to both the killer and his amateur pair of Zodiac hunters.
Everyone in the movie is top notch in their performances, but I will single out two of the supporting players to show how well the movie is put together. Toschi has a partner, Bill Armstrong, played by Antony Edwards. Armstrong is a dedicated professional but he remains more impartial than Toschi. He is analytical but not obsessive. Edwards exudes competence with an aura of detachment. He wants to solve the case as much as his partner, but he doesn't let the frustrations of the case overwhelm him. Edwards is the cool straight man to Ruffalo's, only slightly warmer counterpart. They make a great team.
The second outstanding secondary performance is by John Carrol Lynch, who plays the eventual main suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen. We only see Allen in the context of the investigations. There are no scenes where he is depicted as the killer engaged in the crimes. We learn about his character in interviews with his former friends and family. When Toschi, Armstrong and two other law enforcement personnel question him at work in the break room of the facility he works at, all sorts of alarms are going off in our heads as the cops listen with gapped mouths to the explanations and information that Allen shares. Lynch is calmly aloof as he spills suspicious conduct and details to the investigators. His face never reveals a fear that he is trapped, or that he is on alert in the face of the questions he is getting. His quiet comment "I am not the Zodiac. And if I was, I certainly wouldn't tell you." is as chilling as some of the murders that we see depicted in the film.
The verisimilitude of the film is found in a thousand places in the movie. The location shots are all consistent with the era. There is a sequence with Melvin Belli, a famous attorney who was a celebrity because of the lawsuits and clients he was involved with His depiction reflects the commercial television practices of the time. Toschi is shown attending a special screening of "Dirty Harry" which is a film that has a character inspired by the real life criminal he is pursuing. One of the most haunting and realistic uses of music of the time occurs in the attack on the couple in a car at the start of the film. Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy" man plays out over the scene, and you can almost smell the aura of the 1960 descending on the moment.
I would not classify this as a horror film, just as I would not say "The Silence of the Lambs" is a horror film. There are certainly frightening moments but the key is realistic suspense. These are thrillers with horror elements. The creepiest scene takes place in a basement, and there is no blood, weapon or violence shown, but the hair on the back of your neck will certainly stand up at the moment. Charles Fleisher, who is best known as the voice of "Roger Rabbit", provides an additional supporting character to make this movie the masterpiece that it is.
"Zodiac" was not a huge success when it was first released, but there has been a lot of reassessment in the last two decades and I think you will find that this movie will hold your attention, frighten you and haunt you for a long time. I am happy to have had a chance to see it again in it's natural habitat and I encourage everyone to spend some time with this excellent film.
