Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsA Brilliant Awkwardness
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 27, 2012
The detective sleuthing story was remarkably entertaining for a first time project for the young Jake Kasdan. Daryl Zero (Bill Pullman) is a remarkable detective, the best in the world, who has achieved his success through his ability to remain a dispassionate and thorough observer. The case of the missing keys starts off innocently enough, but the amount of money being paid to locate them represent a much darker crime. Zero is quite capable at blending in and remaining invisible. The difficulty comes from when he actually has to interact with the world. For this he has come to rely on his assistant, Arlo, enjoyably played by Ben Stiller, who quite frankly has had enough with the bizarre mannerisms and seemingly unreasonable and unnecessary demands placed upon him to support Zero's investigations. In this case, the blackmailer's identity and the missing keys themselves are identified by Zero remarkably quickly, leaving Daryl to work out the primary difficulties of the wherefores and whys. Zero will not conclude the case until he can determine the actual relationship between the various parties. As he moves to investigate the attractive young blackmailer he begins to play a dangerous game that may undermine the dispassionate qualities that had served and protected him thus far. I enjoyed the story and the pace, the capable contributions of Pullman and the young Kim Dickens, and the capable writing and directing of twenty-two year old Jake Kasden.
