In Zero Effect, Bill Pullman is Daryl Zero, the worlds best private investigator. The only thing is he's as reclusive as a cockroach in daylight. It's his lawyer (Ben Stiller) that acts as liason to his clients, so they never actually see the infamous P.I. His current case involves a client (Ryan O'Neil) very worried about his lost keychain.
When Zero leaves his highly secured loft to work on a case, he brings along with him many false identities, paranoid delusions, and a whack of drugs. Claiming himself to be the master of observation, Zero can find out whatever he wants, so there's no point in trying to hide anything. Being so objective, however, has its setbacks. He refuses to associate with anyone by his lawyer, he's never allowed his emotions to take charge of him, and he needs to know everything to confirm his observations.
But while searching out those elusive car keys, Zero finds himself in a deeper case than what he'd thought, involving a twenty year old murder, a paternaty suit, and himself falling in love with one of the suspects of a blackmailing scheme.
Quirky in a David Lynch-kind of way, Zero Effect uses that quirkyness less to exploit humour, and more to exploit the torment of the character. While having the capability to live a perfectly bright lifestyle, Zero instead leads a dark life in which he hides himself behind other names and other faces, too afraid to let go.
Its an interesting character study if nothing else, of both the ivestigator, and the investigatee, as well it is a terribly good crime story with plenty of shocking revelations, and a complicated mystery surrounding it all. If Zero Effect has a problem, it's that it's confused about its focus. At times its Daryl Zero, at others it's his case. It's a small problem in a good movie, and doesn't have much relevance except it give the viewer a strange feeling that you've missed something along the way.