The ideas here are very clever. But this turns out to be more of a "tell the audience what's going on" movie than show them. People talk about what they're going to do, what they've done, what they're doing. There's a lot of talk and little action. For some kinds of movies, that's fine. But for this kind of movie it just doesn't seem to quite work. Of course you can consider this to be a very offbeat detective story, which is what it is, true. But the characters are just not involving enough to counterbalance the offbeat quality of the movie.

We don't really get a fully humanized portrait of Daryl Zero, the title character. As for his assistant, Steve Arlo, we know he's getting tired of working with Zero, but that seems to be the main trait that comes across characterizing him, which doesn't do much to flesh him out either. As for the "bad guy", Ryan O'Neal, he's bland. Zero's love interest, played by Kim Dickens, is the most fully realized character in the movie but when you bounce that characterization against someone who we don't have a fully developed character for, it just doesn't feel like there's a legit reason for the two of them to hook up.

I gave this three stars because the ideas are sharp. I wish I could say it was a movie that pulled me in, but it really left me pretty cold.
The ideas here are very clever. But this turns out to be more of a "tell the audience what's going on" movie than show them. People talk about what they're going to do, what they've done, what they're doing. There's a lot of talk and little action. For some kinds of movies, that's fine. But for this kind of movie it just doesn't seem to quite work. Of course you can consider this to be a very offbeat detective story, which is what it is, true. But the characters are just not involving enough to counterbalance the offbeat quality of the movie. We don't really get a fully humanized portrait of Daryl Zero, the title character. As for his assistant, Steve Arlo, we know he's getting tired of working with Zero, but that seems to be the main trait that comes across characterizing him, which doesn't do much to flesh him out either. As for the "bad guy", Ryan O'Neal, he's bland. Zero's love interest, played by Kim Dickens, is the most fully realized character in the movie but when you bounce that characterization against someone who we don't have a fully developed character for, it just doesn't feel like there's a legit reason for the two of them to hook up. I gave this three stars because the ideas are sharp. I wish I could say it was a movie that pulled me in, but it really left me pretty cold.