Starring Bill Pullman, Ben Stiller, Ryan O'Neal, and Kim Dickens Directed by Jake Kasdan Rated R, with profanity Running time 113 minutes Jack gives this film a rating of 8 out of 10

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(Feb. 20, 1998) -- Daryl Zero is the intensely private private eye at the center of Zero Effect, a quirky thriller with comic undertones from 22-year-old writer-director Jake Kasdan.

Starring as Zero is Bill Pullman, in his best performance to date. Kasdan takes full advantage of the actor's off-beat screen vulnerability, as well as his low-key, dry-as-a-bone sense of humor.

The detached, unsociable Zero is the most original detective to hit the screen in a very long time.

We first see him as an unshaven misfit, jumping up and down on his bed, playing an off-key guitar and singing some very bad self-penned folk music.

Clearly, he needs help to deal with the public, which is why Steve Arlo (Ben Stiller) is on the payroll.

Arlo is a smart, well-dressed attorney -- and Zero's front man. He secures the jobs and interviews clients and witnesses.

When Zero leaves his high-tech apartment and finally goes into action, it's always in disguise.

In Zero Effect, he's hired to find a guy's keys. That might not sound like much, but the keys belong to Greg Stark, an Oregon lumber tycoon (played by the well-cast Ryan O'Neal). And one of the keys fits an all-important safety deposit box.

As the incognito Zero delves into the case, he begins to suspect that a perky Portland paramedic named Gloria (Kim Dickens) may be involved.

But then he discovers something far more shocking: He's falling in love with Gloria, something the world's most detached detective has never done.

Zero Effect is a surprisingly assured work for a first-time moviemaker.

To create Zero, a bona fide original, Kasdan cleverly distills the quirks of fictional detectives Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe, and gives them delightful Generation X twists.

Then he adds a complex, engrossing mystery, a shadowy visual style and oddball humor.

Kasdan did emerge from a great gene pool. He's the son of Lawrence Kasdan, Raiders of the Lost Ark and director of The Big Chill and Grand Canyon.

When he was just 13, the younger Kasdan told me, he met Pullman on Dad's set for The Accidental Tourist -- and started imagining Pullman as Zero even then.

I hope Zero Effect finds an audience for two reasons: first, because it deserves to be seen, and second, because I want to see Daryl Zero back on the screen again.

This is one Zero that adds up to a lot of fun.