Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 18-January-04
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Zero Effect (1998)

Young writer/director Jake Kasdan was onto something when he decided to try a modern version of Sherlock Holmes, and I bet he thought so too, envisioning "Zero Effect" as the first in a series of smart, urban-chic mysteries with a hint of a dark side. Problem was, his series debut fell flat at the box office and so came to an abrupt and premature demise. This is regrettable, because "Zero Effect" is an enjoyable film which suggests that Kasdan and his leading man were just warming up, and that things were only going to get better.

Bill Pullman makes a marvelous entrance and a good show as Daryl Zero, an asocial but brilliant detective who holes up in a filthy LA penthouse writing hideous pop songs and indulging in the occasional drug, and yet always gets his man. His communications with the outside world are performed by the one person in his life, Steve Arlo (Ben Stiller), a natty lawyer who enjoys the monetary rewards and sense of importance that his job provides, but not its eccentricity. The movie details a notable case involving Ryan O'Neal, a safe deposit box, blackmail, and murder, which proves to be a watershed in the lives of both men.

When I first saw this movie in the theater, I felt that Pullman was too attractive to play Zero, and that Kasdan betrayed the character he worked so hard to set up by getting him out of the house and embroiling him in a love affair with one of his suspects (Kim Dickens). But when I recently watched it again, I didn't get the same feeling (perhaps because I know now that Holmes, though no less a freak, was also quite the hottie). Pullman does an excellent job portraying someone who is socially and emotionally removed not because he's misanthropic, but because he has been damaged (unlike Holmes), and his timid acceptance of the affection that Dickens offers rings true. He does perhaps look better than most men who spend their days getting high and eating junk food in front of a computer, but, hey, this is the movies after all.

The areas where "Zero Effect" displays some weakness are, for the most part, the areas that might have improved had the characters and their narrator's style been allowed to ripen. Like many whodunits, the story relies overmuch on convoluted plot twists and sudden revelations, but the machinations of plot matter less when the quirks, interactions, and methods of the people involved provide the principal source of interest. Certainly Kasdan intended for Zero and Arlo to be the primary focus of the film, both as entities with separate lives to lead and as a comedic/dramatic duo. As it stands, Zero's appeal far outstrips Arlo's, whose individual scenes involve a tedious relationship with a trophy girlfriend; however, Stiller seems capable of building upon Arlo's outwardly-crusty-but-inwardly-soft persona to create a latter-day Watson worthy of Zero. They already work so well together that once the movie breaks off their association, there's nothing left to be done other than tie up the story with a neat and unsatisfying little bow. If future installments had put the romances aside and centered on Zero, Arlo, and their pursuit of an elusive criminal, a franchise might really have taken flight.

Kasdan and a different cast made a TV movie of "Zero Effect" (intended as a series pilot) in 2002, which apparently joined its predecessor in one of the more obscure vaults of Hollywood history. Oh, well. The film now has the privilege of being one of those chancy DVDs you pick up when nothing else sounds appealing, which, when enjoyed, will feel like a secret and serendipitous discovery.

Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.