I try to never, ever, walk out on a film. Even when it is atrocious, a film can sometimes have a final scene that turns the entire piece around. A film can sometimes win you over in 30 seconds.

Not that "The Zeros" is all that bad. It's a relatively decent film for most of it's run time. But filmmaker John Ryman starts the piece by trying to be quirky and funny. Perhaps this allows us to ease into the film but, in the long run, it detracts from the film's darker edges. The opening scene is ludicrous because the main character Joe (Mack Astin), whose last name we never learn, is told by a doctor he is going to die. Ryman is simply setting up his plot but the scene is absurdist and unrealistic and it shouldn't be. It's certainly acceptable that Joe's disease be unnamed and incurable but why play it for laughs? Why make it unrealistic?

Despite this, what the film becomes is nothing less than a treatise on the meaning of life itself. "The Zeros" refer to this "first" decade of the new century as the film is set seemingly just 15 minutes into the future. But "The Zeros" can also be considered the protag Joe, and the young male cult member and a pretty young female exotic dancer he befriends. Joe, seemingly unintentionally and with little reason, rescues them both from harm and soon the trio is on the road with only a vague notion of a mission. Joe, himself an orphan and dying, has anger management issues. He and his companions are all damaged people. And in tiny bits and pieces, small moments, Ryman delicately exposes them to us. The "road movie" also becomes a bit of a character study.

I really don't want to give too much away about the film. The key here is the final scene which is, without doubt, one of the most beautiful, poignant and important scenes ever to grace the screen. Ryman's film may not be all that special and his work may not be that ground-breaking, but this scene is a little slice of beauty that simply must exist somewhere on film. And it becomes, in the long run, important that we watch the evolution of the main character up to that scene.

I wish Ryman could have molded the script a little more before he lensed the piece. Sometimes this seems like a first draft. There are a few moments that detract rather than add to the final film. But overall, it's a good film. I was never bored while watching it and became more and more interested as it unspooled.

"The Zeros" is one of those film's whose beauty isn't always apparent while you watch it. But I defy you to stay until the last scene and not be moved. It's a killer, not a zero at all, but a 100.

Note:

Kyle Gass of Tenacious D has a cameo.

Shot on Super 16. The copy I saw was on Beta.

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