Zero Effect (1998)

I rented this and hoped it might be a cool indie movie that I missed and no one ever heard of. There's a reason no one's ever heard of it, it kinda sucks. No it definitely sucks. A lot of the other comments and reviews here might lead you to believe you're going to see an intelligent, plot-twisting detective story. Well, the plot just tries to be intelligent by being so complicated the viewer needs to keep notes to follow the "twists". Stupid romantic subplot and a scooby-doo ending.

Fmovies: This movie convinced me that Ben Stiller (a.k.a the white Samuel L. Jackson nowadays - in reference to his numerous movie roles) needs to go to acting school. It's not the fact that Ben Stiller is necessarily a bad actor, it's just that I don't think he's taken the time to really learn how to perform on the big screen in starring roles. Stiller's comic genius goes undisputed, and his potential as a director is intriguing. However, as was painfully apparent in the Zero Effect, Stiller's acting skills need to be refined. The script was witty, and Bill Pullman was a definite bright spot, but quite frankly the ending sucked. There is no way to softly describe an ending as boring and cheesy as that of the Zero Effect. The melodrama that is forcibly injected into the movie (a.k.a Pullman's love interest) is undesired and disruptive. Although this film is worth your 3 dollars (Pullman is worth $2.75 of it himself), it lacks the power and spirit that is essential to a quality film.

The cast in this movie is well thought out!! Bill Pullman plays Detective Daryl Zero, and he is a consortium of unorthodox emotions!! Your initial perception of him being one whereby he is an amphetamine freak, who chants like a castrated country rock singer, and drinks 68 cans of Tab in a single day!! Concocting irrational conclusions for everything is Daryl Zero's favorite hobby, and, all of his ersatz proclivities, which unalterably require a necessary detachment, are peculiar enough to put him in either Belvue or Believe it or Not!! He can astutely characterize a white collar criminal, and speak six different languages, yet, he is incapable of filling out a tax form!! With regard to something or someone being hazardous, Daryl Zero should come with a personalized warning label which reads: Compared to this guy, arsenic seems like an innocuous and palatable beverage!!

The movie starts off with Gregory Stark, (Ryan O'Neal) who is the anonymously wealthy guy. Stark has now become the aggrieved recipient of blackmail!! Steve Arlo, (Ben Stiller) plays Detective Zero's business manager, Steve (Ben Stiller) manufactures a mystique about Detective Zero through a bastardized affidavit containing a bevy of counter culture mannerisms!! Arlo (Ben Stiller) presents a cogent case to Gregory Stark (Ryan O'Neal) that Daryl Zero's doggerel of accomplishments consists of numerous radical approaches and techniques which serve as a means of being the most effective method to "cracking the case"!! Desperate and annoyed by pecuniary depletion from a petty (yet stinging) series of blackmail tactics,Gregory Stark (Ryan O'Neal) is ready to give way to the unconventional!!! Consummation of this deal opens up the floodgates for an onslaught of nuances to surface which everyone in the movie becomes besieged with.. Daryl Zero's prescience is profound in his ability at pinpointing the perpetrator to this blackmail crime!! This film provides a precarious pontification to many different ideological premises for all parties concerned!! More importantly, it should be established that the trivial details and innate intricacies of everyone's sordid human nature, are far more significant to the plot of this movie, than the overall complications which pertain to this film's resonating end results!! The two OB's; observation and objectivity, guide Detective Zero in the direction of satiating his desires to resolve everything... This acute homogenization of deductive logic is what is referred to in this film as the "Zero Effect"!!

This movie is loaded with talent, the writing is particularly well thought out, and the innovative genre to this film makes it intellectually gratifying to watch!!! All is well, but ends well, however, it is not manifested in the proverbially neon accented format that people are accustomed to when viewing a film with a happy ending.. Everyone's aggravated afflictions are related to their environment, and, Detective Zero's concluding jeremiad, which establishes a mandatory closure on the whole blackmail issue, winds up getting categorized accordingly!! That being said, let's put it behind us, it's over, so why not just go sky diving, or attend someone's funeral or something!! Extremely well made film. It is Crazy with a capital "C". I am very glad that I saw it!!!

Zero Effect fmovies. I didn't see this in theaters because most critics up here were dismissive of it, so I checked it out when it hit video and what I wanted wasn't available. I should have ignored the critics. Even if, like me, you're not well versed in Sherlock Holmes (which this film is inspired by), you should enjoy this movie. Bill Pullman is wonderful as Daryl Zero, who lives his professional life by the two "obs; observation and objectivity." He's quirky without being overly eccentric, and he's very believable and touching. Ben Stiller is a nice foil as his front man. Kim Dickens proves after PALOOKAVILLE and this that she's a talent to watch. I even liked Ryan O'Neal, whom I'm not a fan of. I'm definitely looking forward to Jake Kasdan's next film; he looks like he may be as talented as his father.

A lot can be said about the superb writing that this film contains. It is also very well acted. But one thing that has always shocked me is just how emotionally involving it is. Darryl Zero's budding relationship with the woman, Kim Dickens, is so well written and acted that I believed every moment of it. Kim Dickens' character goes through some very difficult situations, and they all work. Ben Stiller's problems ring true, also. And I'd like to point out that his girlfriend is the woman Bruce Campbell has to defend in S-Mart at the end of Army of Darkness.

There are only a couple of criticisms I have of the film. The first ten or fifteen minutes seem to contain an entirely different style of comedy than the rest of the film. With Darryl Zero's horrendous guitar stylings and fridge full of TAB and tuna, I expected it to be an off-the-wall comedy or spoof of a detective film or something. The first time I saw the film, I was told how funny it was, and after I saw the ridiculous first ten minutes or so, I was constantly expecting the film to use slapstick and other such jokes. The film is funny, but if you go in expecting a comedy, or only a comedy, anyways, you're going to miss the emotional cues. Also, some of the discoveries and some of the trivia that Darryl Zero exhibits is a bit ridiculous. I mean, Sherlock Holmes, who was actually based on a real person, a college professor at Oxford, I believe, had amazing powers of deduction, but not even he could guess which bus Kim Dickens was going to tell her victim to get on. And I would also think that someone who does have the abilities that Darryl Zero supposedly has would never make up a job and tell that to one person, and forget that job and make a new one to give to someone else who frequents the same place as the first one!

As soon as the "Zero Effect" finished, my wife and I turned to each other and said, "that's one of the best movies we've seen." Bill Pullman shows why he is one of the best, if often overlooked, actors. He plays the very private detective Daryl Zero who is uncannily insightful on the job, but otherwise is a mess. We laughed so hard at times that we had tears in our eyes. And it isn't just funny - there is a very well-woven story involving murder and blackmail.

For its cleerness, acting, story, and directing, I give it a solid "9" of "10", and one of my all-time favorites.