For much of his career, Patrick Wilson has wielded his hunky good looks with an intriguing ambivalence. In movies like Little Children and Watchmen—or his guest spot on Girls—the 42-year-old actor has played stereotypically handsome, all-American characters, but there’s always something a bit off about these men, as if their perfect features are a warning to watch out for the emptiness or flaw underneath. He could spend the rest of his life playing politicians with their mixture of telegenic charm and dispiriting superficiality, but that might almost be too easy: He fits the role uncomfortably well.
The gravest weakness of the character study Zipper is that it’s never smarter than in its casting of Wilson, who portrays an ambitious, virtuous married federal prosecutor whose seeking of higher office gets endangered by an unexpected addiction to high-class call girls. Wilson has the effortless ability to show both sides of the man’s personality—the chiseled good guy and the debilitating lack of self-control—but it’s in service to a movie that’s neither very astute about the worlds it observes nor sufficiently compelling in the story it tells. Even worse, Zipper ends up making Wilson look pretty silly through little fault of his own.
Directed and co-written by Mora Stephens (Conventioneers), the film introduces us to Sam Ellis (Wilson), who loves going after the corrupt in power, practically taking it personally that these men would abuse their vaunted position. Zipper demonstrates Sam’s good moral character early on by placing an alluring, willing young intern (Dianna Agron) in his path, but even though she kisses him one drunken night, he politely demurs, telling her that it’ll have to stop there.
But the seeds of Sam’s destruction are already starting to be sown. His office is investigating a case involving an escort service. Almost despite himself, he calls the service, arranges a hotel meeting with one of the women. It’s something he’s never done before, and even as it’s happening, he’s not quite sure why he is or if he’ll go through with it. But soon, Sam gets a taste for these clandestine trysts. That’s bad enough considering that he has a great wife (Lena Headey) and family, but a crafty political operative (Richard Dreyfuss) thinks Sam would make a dynamite congressional candidate, convincing him to begin an election campaign built around his above-reproach persona.