Zero Effect

Director: Jake Kasdan
Cast:
Ryan O'Neal
Bill Pullman
Ben Stiller

It's easy to write off Jake Kasdan as prototypical nepotism, but as they say in Hollywood, "connections only get you so far." You gotta have talent, and the brood of Lawrence Kasdan ("Body Heat," "Grand Canyon") shows that he definitely knows what he's doing.

Bill Pullman struts, cowers, coughs and slinks around as the quasi-agoraphobic Daryl Zero, the self-proclaimed Greatest Private Investigator in the World. His assistant, the unctuous Ben Stiller, must provide the real-world link for his reclusively weird boss, and begins to chafe at the endless meetings, plane flights and seemingly unnecessary research. But Zero always gets his man, and when rich, guileless Ryan O'Neal needs his help to find his keys (and a lot more), he does—but also falls in love with the woman he might have to kill (Kim Dickens).

The script is superb, full of little zingers and social observations that seem like someone should have already put them in a movie. Beautifully set up in both plot and character, the movie only faults on pace, but nothing that a second-time director won't fix the next go-around. Stiller is deadpan funny as the lawyer at the end of his patience, and O'Neal exudes the sweaty, bloated insouciance of someone who is never held accountable for his actions. But the real winner here is Bill Pullman, who, when given dialogue eighty fathoms better than "Independence Day," shows he can be hilariously idiosyncratic and warmly endearing. This flick is the surprise of the winter—take a date and go.

—Ian Williams

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