TITLE: ZERO Effect: The Abridged Script
AUTHOR: Ildi
RATING: Oh, let's call it an R because the film was too.
DISCLAIMER: Ildi and billpullman.org do not have any legal claim over this story and the characters. They belong to someone else. We don't make any money; Ildi doesn't make any money, although she should because she's a pretty darn good writer. Neither Idli nor the billpullman.org webmistresses have any money, so that's a dead-end, rich and powerful Hollywood lawyers. We're all just passing a good time here. And, we highly recommend the movie, so go buy it. That way someone, including Bill, makes some money. The script will then make sense; otherwise, you're just flapping in the wind, baby.
INT. RYAN O’NEAL’S OFFICE, PORTLAND, OREGON.
BEN STILLER is sitting on the couch, filling Ryan O’Neal’s head with bullshit.
BEN STILLER
My client is the greatest expert of the criminal mind, the best private detective that ever lived. He is intelligent, brilliant, well mannered and classy....
CUT TO BILL PULLMAN’S APT. IN LA, where BILL is seen jumping up and down on his bed, eating tuna out of a can and scratching his nether regions.
BEN STILLER
....so he is your man, I’m telling you.
RYAN O’NEAL
All right, tell Mr. Zero that he is hired. But he’d better be good. He comes quite expensive.
INT. BILL PULLMAN’S APARTMENT - LATER
Bill is standing on his bed, sporting a pair of red colored longjohns, boots, an ugly shirt with large floral print, and a god-awful haircut. He is playing a guitar while wailing a horrible song.
BEN STILLER
That was a good song Bill.. Was it inspired by a woman?
BILL PULLMAN
Nah, just a sixpack. What did the guy in Portland want?
BEN STILLER
His name is Stark, and he wants you to find his keys and the person who is blackmailing him.
BILL PULLMAN
Ah, Gregory Stark, Oregon Timber. The fat guy has a company worth a few million dollars, a mansion, a black BMW, two dogs, and a pear shaped birthmark on the inside of his left testicle.
BEN STILLER
Incredible. How did you figure all that out?
BILL PULLMAN
Didn’t I tell you that I was the best private detective on the face of the pl.....
JAKE KASDAN
I read him O’Neal’s character profile.
BILL PULLMAN
Party pooper!
BEN STILLER
All right, let’s go to Portland and find that blackmailer.
INT. FITNESS CENTER, PORTLAND
Disguised as a damn handsome architect Bill carefully trails O’Neal, observes him at the gym, even strikes up a conversation with him. Then he goes to the receptionist to make an appointment.
BILL PULLMAN
I’d like to book a massage.
RECEPTIONIST
Regular or exotic? Bill frowns, and his face turns beet red.
VOICE
Book him for an exotic, Daisy, it looks like he could use it.
Bill turns around, and finds a young woman, about 20 years younger than he standing behind him.
BILL PULLMAN
What do you mean I could use it?
KIM DICKENS
No man has ever refused an exotic massage.
BILL PULLMAN
I’m different from other men.
KIM DICKENS
Are you gay?
BILL PULLMAN
Hope not. Are you a maintenance worker?
KIM DICKENS
How did you know that?
BILL PULLMAN
(wrinkles his nose)
Just a hunch.
After the gym Bill trails Ryan O’Neal a little more, who’s been instructed by the blackmailer to deliver a large amount of money to a local school’s washroom.
BILL PULLMAN
This can get a little boring here, so I’m going to entertain you by teaching you the three golden rules of trailing someone. Rule #1: Alway make sure of the identity of the person you are supposed to follow, it can save you a shitload of embarrassment. Rule #2: Don’t allow yourself to be spotted by the person you are following, that way you can save yourself another shitload of embarrassment. Rule #3: If you’ve been spotted, take the money and run. You can always open another detective agency under a different name.
RYAN O’NEAL
Quit yapping man, I’m here in the washroom. I have the money and the double cheeseburger.
BILL PULLMAN
What the hell do you need the cheeseburger for?
RYAN O’NEAL
Beats me. It’s here in the instructions: STUFF THE MONEY INTO THE BROWN BAG IN THE TOILET TANK, FLUSH THE CHEESEBURGER AND GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE.
BILL PULLMAN
??? Oh well, go ahead and flush that sucker.
O’Neal puts the money into the tank and flushes the cheeseburger. It plugs up the plumbing, and the bathroom gets flooded with raw sewage. The janitor and the school principal comes running.
PRINCIPAL
Oh shit!
JANITOR
That’s what it looks like, sir. Better call for help.
In a few minutes a big tanker, with the words PORTLAND SEWER SYSTEM MAINTENANCE written on it stops in front of the school, and a group of workers wearing yellow waterproof outfits come in running. Bill watches Kim Dickens go into the bathroom hauling a stinky, thick brown hose, and come out with the even stinkier brown bag.
INT. FITNESS CENTRE - LATER
Kim Dickens is working out. Suddenly Bill pops up from nowhere.
KIM DICKENS
Hi! You have to tell me how you knew that I was a maintenance worker.
BILL PULLMAN
Are you sure you want to know?
KIM DICKENS
Yes.
BILL PULLMAN
I could smell it. I knew it the moment I turned to you and got a whiff. Human waste has a specific smell, even little kids couldn’t miss it, and you were reeking of it. It seemed that you worked the night before, and you haven’t washed your hair or scrubbed down, which is a mystery to me, after all what kind of creature would spend a shift submerged in pee, poop, and God knows what other stuff and not take a shower before she hits the road is beyond me, but this is how I kind of guessed.
KIM DICKENS
Not bad. So what do you do for a living?
BILL PULLMAN
I’m an accountant.
KIM DICKENS
Hot damn! This is my lucky day. Can you do my taxes?
BILL PULLMAN
Sure.
They go to KIM’S APARTMENT where Bill spends the afternoon doing her taxes while she takes a nap. That says something about Portland hospitality.
KIM DICKENS
Thank you for doing my taxes. To express my gratitude I will take you into the woods and teach you how to shoot.
EXT. FOREST - NIGHT
KIM is teaching the private detective to shoot.
KIM DICKENS
Okay. Do you know what it feels like to hold a loaded gun?
BILL PULLMAN
No, but thanks to those tight jeans you are wearing, now I know what it feels like to be one.
KIM DICKENS
Are you ready to shoot?
BILL PULLMAN (gulping)
Damn near.
KIM DICKENS
Okay. Prepare, aim, and fire!
Suddenly we hear a loud BANG followed by a SHRIEK, and a dead bird falls off a nearby tree.
BILL PULLMAN
Ooops, missed.
KIM DICKENS
Jeez Bill, your aim is about half a mile off.
BILL PULLMAN
That’s what the lady who cleans my bathroom keeps telling me. Maybe I should wear my glasses.
Few more rounds and a few dead birds later they pack up and Kim takes Bill home, where he spends the night awake and frustrated.
GARAGE - NEXT MORNING
BEN STILLER
You slept at her house?
BILL PULLMAN
Who said anything about sleeping? I was tossing and turning all night. She put me on the couch, would you believe it?
BILL PULLMAN and BEN STILLER go to one of the motels in the city to figure out the events that happened some twenty years before.
BEN STILLER
What are we doing here?
BILL PULLMAN
You are watching the greatest criminal expert in action. I’m simply showing off my knowledge that would freak out even good old Sherlock Holmes. I’m going to give you a lecture about the fire code of the seventies, which will make me sound very smart, then we’ll go to my motel and have a good argument, because there is no action in this movie, and we need to spice it up a bit.
BEN STILLER and BILL PULLMAN proceed to go to the motel where Bill has some fun wrecking the place a little. Then they have a friendly shouting match, and Bill gets to throw the F word around a couple of times. After that, Bill goes on a date.
INT. DINER
BILL and KIM are sitting at a table in the annoyingly red colored diner with KIM wearing an annoyingly red colored dress, and share a milkshake.
KIM DICKENS
Go ahead, take a sip!
BILL PULLMAN
Can’t. I’m lactose intolerant.
KIM DICKENS
How about a beer then?
BILL PULLMAN
Jake doesn’t allow me to drink on the job.
KIM DICKENS
What a bummer. So tell me: why are you so screwed up?
BILL PULLMAN
My father was an evil, abusive man, and he killed my mother while she was sleeping. Then he cut his wrists. I was thirteen.
KIM DICKENS
That’s a cool story man, you should sell it to Hollywood. They’d make a neat movie out of it. Btw: I like the way you said it. I’m sure the Academy will follow its seventy-something year old tradition and ignore the greatest performance, and hand out the statue to some talentless jerk who couldn’t act if his life depended on it.
After dinner they go to KIM’s apartment where BILL proceeds to lose his virginity.
BEN STILLER
I don’t get it. How come you end up with a naked woman in your arms in almost every movie you make these days?
BILL PULLMAN
It’s one of the perks of the job, my friend. You could have it too if you didn’t have such a horse face.
The best private detective in the world soon has the whole thing figured out. Now he only needs the locker combination to get at the box that contains the tape O’Neal is being blackmailed with.
CASTLE ROCK EXECUTIVE
Twenty-twenty five thousand.
BILL PULLMAN
Is that the locker combination?
CASTLE ROCK EXECUTIVE
No. It’s the amount of dollars this movie is going to make.
BILL PULLMAN
Come on man, have some faith. It will be much better than that.
CASTLE ROCK EXECUTIVE
Are you sure?
BILL PULLMAN
Leave it to the Pullmanites. There are more than a hundred of them, and they will all go see it at least five times. When it comes out on video they will all rent it at least as many times, and once it will be available for sale they’ll all buy at least two copies, ‘cause they know they’ll wear the tape out with the dinner and love scene. So you do the math pal.
CASTLE ROCK EXECUTIVE
Thanks Bill, I needed that.
INT. AIRPORT
KIM is running off with all the money, but calls BILL before her plane departs.
KIM DICKENS
I’ll be going now, take care Bill! I’ll miss all the smart stuff we kept blurting out.
BILL PULLMAN
Like "Passion is the enemy of precision"?
KIM DICKENS
Yeah! And "Sometimes what you are looking for is
right in front of your nose".
BILL PULLMAN
How about "What doesn’t kill you defines you"?
KIM DICKENS
"A person can not escape their nature."
BEN STILLER
"There are no good guys or bad guys, it’s just a bunch of guys."
FORREST GUMP
"Life is like a box of chocolate. You never know what you’re gonna get."
THE PULLMANITES
"There is more than one way to skin a c..."
JAKE KASDAN
All right, dammit! I can take a hint.
INT. BILL PULLMAN’S APARTMENT
BILL is sitting at his computer, writing his memoirs.
BILL PULLMAN
So this is my account of the Case Of The Fat Man Who Clogged Up The Toilet With A Cheesburger. This was my most difficult detective work to date, after all I had to deal with a fat tycoon, a rebellious sidekick, a bad perm and a stinky woman, who by the way took my virginity and gave me a rash in return. Thanks to all these things now I’m more screwed up than ever, but as least now I know that I AM gay, ‘cause whatever that woman did to me in bed had Zero Effect.
THE END
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