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Rated: R; Genres: Comedy, Crime, Mystery; With: Ryan O'Neal, Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller
C+
By Troy Patterson
Troy Patterson
Troy Patterson is a critic for EW. He lives in Brooklyn.

ZERO EFFECT Bill Pullman, Ben Stiller (1998, Warner, R, $103.99) The antithesis of Raymond Chandler's ''neat, clean, shaved, and sober'' Philip Marlowe, Pullman's Det. Daryl Zero is sloppy, soiled, scraggly, and wired in this oddball post-noir. A lumber magnate who refuses to say why he's being blackmailed hires Zero -- the world's best PI and its most haplessly antisocial -- and his Watson (Stiller) to find his persecutor. First-time writer-director Jake Kasdan (son of Lawrence) is clever and sly, and Pullman -- all tics, fits, and smirks -- makes an entrancing freakazoid. Too bad a maudlin femme fatale subplot (with Mercury Rising's Kim Dickens) amounts to less than zero. B-


Posted Jul 17, 1998
 

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