Zero Effect (1998)
Directed by Jake Kasdan
Daryl Zero is a private investigator and—along with his assistant, Steve Arlo—he solves impossible crimes and puzzles. Although Daryl's a master investigator, he doesn't know what to do with himself when he's not working; he has no social skills, writes bad music and drives Steve crazy.
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What critics compared Zero Effect to
Good little dialogue jabs like that are common in the script by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, which is given very brisk direction by Jake Kasdan (" Zero Effect ").
The director is Jake Kasdan, who’s done comedy wonderfully before (“Zero Effect,” “Walk Hard”), yet he completely wipes out here.
Director Jake Kasdan has a string of marginal cult faves to his credit, the kind of little-seen weirdo comedies (Zero Effect, The TV Set and Orange County) that people pretend to have seen to earn cool points at parties.
Bad Teacher walks a very fine line: its black humour is always consistently dark, and yet director Jake Kasdan (Zero Effect, Freaks and Geeks) keeps the film bright and light on its feet.
From the brilliant modern take on Sherlock Holmes in Zero Effect to the parody of music biopics in the underappreciated Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and even to a lesser effect in going behind-the-scenes of television in The TV Set, Kasdan has more experience in the realm than many of the hacks earning top dollar for lackluster comedies.
But when you kick off your career with "Zero Effect" and a whole bunch of season one of "Freaks and Geeks," you set the bar pretty high for yourself.
After starting his career with the one-two punch of Zero Effect and Orange County , only to renege on that goodwill with near laugh-free misfire like Walk Hard and Sex Tape , director Jake Kasdan appears to have found his calling in this bizarro-comic world.
But while Kasdan has made some fine comedies (and one all-timer, the terrific comic detective picture Zero Effect ), his command of set pieces lacks the playfulness he brings to the funny bits.
Furthermore, to watch it is to endure a constant strain as director Jake Kasdan (Zero Effect; Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story) struggles to mine the panicky high-concept premise for three acts’ worth of story, let alone 90 minutes of laughs.
Jake Kasdan directed- spotty resume, sure, but he made the outstanding “Zero Effect” and the reasonably good “The TV Set.” Segel and Nicolas Stoller- who wrote 2011’s instant-classic “Muppets” movie, as well as “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”- are two of the three writers.