At
first, all we know of Private Investigator Daryl Zero (Bill Pullman) is a quiet
yet legendary figure. He never meets or
directly speaks with his clients, and his fee is non-negotiable. All business is made through his secretary
Steve Arlo (Ben Stiller), who in his dealings with the film’s main client
Gregory Stark (Ryan O’Neal) speaks with a calm and persuasive
professionalism. The agreement to help
out Stark is set when Arlo describes The Case of the Man with the Mismatched
Shoelaces, where Zero caught a criminal, one who held this country’s foreign
relations in jeopardy, without leaving the house. However, this last point begins Arlo’s rant
to a friend at a bar, highlighting how Zero is practically a socially retarded
recluse, tactless and rude, with no regard for Arlo’s feelings or
well-being. Additionally, Arlo knocks
his terrible songwriting skills, apparently writing “trite and heavy handed”
lyrics. As this is intercut with the
interview with Stark anticipation builds to the inevitable introduction, one
which you really can’t be prepared for, even if you’ve seen Bill Pullman in
action.
It’s
the visit to Zero’s L.A. apartment that gives one of the most weirdly
fascinating first impressions in any movie from the past 30 years. At the top floor of the complex, there is an
outer metallic door with a giant Z insignia (that opens along the diagonal in
two halves), and the next door has six locks.
You’ve never seen a fridge so packed with Tab cola in your life, nor can
you imagine a guitar accompaniment to a song with less rhythmic drive. Amidst empty tuna cans and giant bags of
pretzels we finally enter Zero’s room. Donning
a stained Hawaiian shirt and sweatpants, greasy worled hair and the warble much
like the sound of Willie Nelson’s death rattle, Pullman delivers what is easily
his best performance. A warped cocktail
of tics, smirks and bad manners, Pullman as Zero comes across as an oderous
jerk while still knowing everything about Stark after hearing the name once,
and knowing exactly which flight to book and when Arlo needs to drive him to
the airport. This last part, a recurring
theme in the film, is part of Zero’s disregard for Arlo’s personal life,
specifically his relationship with his girlfriend Jess (Angela Featherstone).
The
case presented to Zero seems normal enough.
For some time now, Stark has been the victim of blackmail, already
delivering seven $100,000 payments to an unknown contact. He also believes that the recent loss of his
safety deposit box key, which he had attached to his house and car keys, is
part of the scheme, knowing that the box contains sensitive materials. Zero flies out to observe Stark in his
natural environment, a local gym in Portland, Or., as Nick Carmine, one of his
many false identities (He has a stash of fake I.D.’s, each one with an
increasingly goofy photo). From two
short meetings, one on a treadmill and one in the bathroom, he intuits an
unbelievable amount of information regarding Stark’s character and the nature
of the blackmail through extremely subtle clues. He also correctly guesses that a woman behind
him in line to get a massage is a paramedic without her letting it on; he
refuses to explain why. He meets up
again with Arlo at the airport, speaking via payphone while he sits three
payphones away in a fake beard. After
relaying info he tells Arlo he needs to fly back to L.A. that night to get
stuff out of his computer, baffling Arlo as to why he was forced to come out
here in the first place; Zero claims that it wasn’t worth risking a
long-distance call because “they’re listening.”
A
simple rhythm is set up, as the main action is cross-cut with Zero penning a
memoir about his craft, the art of not only finding the trail of crumbs but
“reading between the crumbs.” First-time
writer-director Jake Kasdan, son of the famous Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill,
Grand Canyon), keeps a silken, relaxed feel throughout, and so his technique
here of telling the story of the case alternately through the action and Zero’s
use of it as references to his theories of detecting is never jarring or
awkward. Everything about this film
radiates a calm, sympathetic amusement with its characters and story, avoiding
the very thought of turning into a thriller and simply content with sitting
back with a cup of coffee and seeing where the case leads itself. Zero’s memoir mirrors the smoothly detached
tone of the film; as an example, I’ll quote the narration during a scene where
Zero snoops through Stark’s office:
“Now:
a few words on looking for things. When
you go looking for something specific, your chances of finding it are very bad,
because of all things in the world, you’re only looking for one of them. When you go looking for anything at all,
you’re chances of finding it are very good, because of all the things in the
world, you’re sure to find some of them.
And the most important rule: often the thing you’re looking for is right
in front of your nose.”
Oddly
enough in this detective film, Zero finds the blackmailer fairly early. It turns out to be the woman he correctly
guessed to be a paramedic, as he sees her pick up the money, hiding it in her
equipment bag. Also oddly, Zero refuses
to end the case once he knows who the blackmailer is; he wants to know what her
“deal” is. For a man who is strikingly
skilled at reading people (even before he meets them), he can’t quite crack her
code, and it’s also convenient that she has asked him to do her taxes, buying
into his earlier cover story of being an accountant. Naturally, but also with some welcome twists,
this leads to a romantic subplot, with Zero’s emotional involvement with an
obvious criminal messing with his usual detachment, and his willingness to turn
her name over to Stark.
It’s
at this point that we can see the film for what it is, which is a collection of
character studies wrapped up in a deft mystery.
I guess that most audiences got turned off when they realized that the
film wasn’t a crime thriller, with lots of gunfire and car chases, but I was
actually relieved that these lovely, complex characters weren’t going to be
jammed into some kind of awkward Connection of the French persuasion. Rather, the characters are left to feel their
way through their situations, Zero with his detecting subject, named Gloria
(Kim Dickens), and Gloria alternately trying to figure out Zero, Arlo with his
relationships to Zero and Jess, and Stark with his constant need to get rid of
his blackmail problem as quickly as possible, and with a certain disregard for
human life.
I’ll
apologize in advance, because talking much more about the plot would be a
serious mistake, as the unfolding of the mystery is highly enjoyable and full
of refreshing surprises. Regardless, I
can reveal a few interesting moments to get your appetites going, such as a
scene where Stark tries to enter Zero’s hotel room to find out the identity of
the blackmailer, and Arlo stops him by saying he will kill him if he tries to
enter (“I have a gun, and everything.”).
The argument he has with Zero before that scene involves a great line:
“There aren’t any evil guys, or…innocent guys…there’s just…a bunch of
guys.” Also, as it turns out, Stark’s
safety deposit box key was just jammed in between the cushions of the couch in
Stark’s office all along.
But
you don’t want plot spoilers, do you?
You want to know the real shining star of the film’s finer qualities,
don’t you? That, my friends, is the
acting, and the subtle character development that is driven by the acting (and
Kasdan’s wise and sympathetic script, of course). Obviously, the film is a showcase for Bill
Pullman, who is easily one of the most underrated actors of the last 20
years. Under his phony accountant
identity he comes across as a man painfully constraining himself in order to
appear boring (with interesting results).
As full-blown Zero, however, he dominates every scene he’s in, probing
and bemused, angry and overblown. His
nervous, socially oblivious nature make his interactions with Arlo riveting,
not only because of how loud and intense his actions are, but because Pullman
is able to somehow mix real subtlety into his outbursts, and pull the reigns
back at exactly the point when the character needs it most.
As
for Stiller, he’s perfectly cast as the professional yet frustrated Arlo. His character is naturally more underplayed
than Zero, but it’s a good display of Stiller’s ability to wear the exact right
expression that elicits real emotion without really working at it. His character’s relationship with Stark is of
particular interest in the movie, as Stark’s increasingly poor moral image
creates a focal point for Arlo’s request to retire from Zero’s employ. O’Neal, long considered to be a very
uncharismatic actor, is also perfectly cast, a worried scumbag attempting to
buy his way out of a truly awful crime of his past. A surprising find for this film is Kim
Dickens as Gloria, a confident and worldly presence for an unconventional love
interest. As Gloria Dickens is
understanding without being sweet, athletic and sexually unassuming, and very
easy to like without asserting her presence.
She’s also one of those people who can make you feel welcome without
ever smiling, which isn’t as common in films as I would like.
As
for the production, it’s just about the least assertive production I’ve seen in
a mystery in a while. Nobody involved
had any belief that this was a neo-noir (except for Zero, perhaps), and so, for
once, we get an excellent mystery film in broad daylight (though there are
rainclouds near the end of the film, considering that it mostly takes place in
Oregon). The music is extraordinarily
nice for a crime film, only periodically calling upon the old noir staple of
Harlem Nocturne-esque sax riffs. The
only really involved set design is Zero’s apartment, especially his workdesk
with its several computers Rat King-ed together by their extension cords. And as a piece of direction, Kasdan may have
believed himself to be a better man behind a typewriter than a camera, because
his pace, blocking, and tone are all purely functional, almost as much as a
Kevin Smith film. This isn’t a problem,
of course, as it just adds to the relaxed feel of everything.
I
can safely say that Zero Effect adds
Jake Kasdan’s name to the wonderful Hall of First-Time Fame, along with other
stunning debut features as Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H*
and Christopher Nolan’s Following (which
I’ll get to in an upcoming review). I
haven’t seen Kasdan’s second feature The
TV Set, a fun-looking satire on the process of getting a TV series off the
ground, but what I’ve heard seems promising, and I can believe it considering
the strength of this debut. The ultimate
question that this film brings up isn’t one of plot or ideas, but rather why
Bill Pullman hasn’t been offered more interesting material during his
career. He’s really quite stunning in Zero Effect, as well as the Curtiss
Clayton/Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) dark comedy Rick (which I’ll discuss in a later review), and deserves a second
look. I guess most people think he’s
boring, but that’s more the fault of the parts he keeps getting (like the dad
from the live-action Casper movie). Bottom line, actors really work best in the
roles that...well, they work best in.
This film is chock-full of that, and it makes Zero Effect worth the price of the rental.
~PNK
P.S.
Apparently Kasdan attempted to make a TV series out of Daryl Zero, which would
feature the cases that made Zero and Arlo a crime-cracking team. It was set to star Alan Cumming (which would
have been a very different spin on the character), and was ultimately not
picked up by NBC. Looks like it’s time
for a Youtube resurrection!
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