| Zero
Effect
Jake Kasdan USA
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| The 'mysterious and brilliant' Daryl Zero (Bill Pullman), the private
eye hero of writer-director Jake Kasdan's debut feature, is one part Sherlock
Holmes, one part Philip Marlowe. When he's working, as sidekick Steve Arlo
(Ben Stiller) observes, he's the smoothest operator you've ever seen. "He
has the ability to read between the crumbs." But off-duty he's a gauche,
dishevelled figure. "A detective is a profession that does not encourage
human contact," observes Kasdan.
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Kasdan, still in his early 20s, admits that filmmaking was in the blood. With his father Lawrence Kasdan (Body Heat, The Accidental Tourist, The Big Chill) as an inspiration, his choice of career is scarcely surprising. "I grew up so close to this process, with constant access, so I knew at a much younger age than probably a lot of other people what I wanted to do and was able to learn how it worked." Kasdan Snr read early drafts of the Zero Effect script but, his son claims, had no direct involvement on how it was made. He is clearly infuriated with the accusations of nepotism levelled at him after the film's US release. Pullman, he says, was always first-choice to play Daryl Zero. "The tone of this movie shifts a lot. In order for it to be comic in the places where it should be and for it to be an examination of a guy in a lot of pain when it needed to be, it was vital that the person playing the role could make it believable." The idea for making Ryan O'Neal the unscrupulous businessman came to Kasdan after he saw the actor sending himself up on The Larry Sanders ShowÉ "I don't like to use villains as villains," Kasdan says of what at first seemed an unlikely piece of casting. "Bad guys don't think they're bad guys." Geoffrey Macnab |
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