Zodiac Killer Project

I saw this at 2025 Sundance. First, I'll start with the positives. The director really knows the true crime doc subgenre. Enough where he can comprehensively compare their similarities and expose the tropes. I wish he had stuck to this format, turning this into an indictment of our obsession with true crime. Instead he narrates B-roll or photos for 90 minutes, telling you about the film he would have made if he could. That's all that this is.

However. This is Exhibit A in you can't say no to white men because they'll just do what they want anyway. The family wouldn't sell him the rights to the book, so he just works around it in a way that is boring and doesn't add anything to the story. Why not wait a few years and see if the family has changed its mind about the IP? Why shoehorn in this forced approach where you then become part of the focus of the doc? A self-aggrandizing vanity project that falls flat, burying the gems he has sprinkled throughout.

PS - I'm married to a white man and do not hate men.