Zoolander is a 2001 American comedy film directed by and starring Ben Stiller. The film contains elements from a pair of short films directed by Russell Bates and written by Drake Sather and Stiller for the VH1 Fashion Awards television specials in 1996 and 1997. The earlier short films and this film feature Derek Zoolander (Stiller), a dimwitted supermodel. It is the last film from Paramount Pictures with the involvement of Village Roadshow Pictures.
In the film, top people in the fashion industry, Jacobim Mugatu (Will Ferrell) and Derek's agent Maury Ballstein (Jerry Stiller), are hired by other executives to assassinate the Prime Minister of Malaysia (Woodrow Asai), who will pass progressive laws that would harm their businesses. Mugatu and Ballstein plan to brainwash Zoolander into killing him. Meanwhile, Zoolander has several personal and career issues, including declining popularity, disappointment in his career choice from his family, and trying to find his true purpose which he suspects is not being a model. Through much research, journalist Matilda Jeffries (Christine Taylor) becomes aware of the planned assassination and informs Derek about it. After Derek reconciles with the competing male model Hansel (Owen Wilson), the three try to stop the Prime Minister's assassination from happening.
A satire on the fashion industry, the film received generally favorable reviews from critics and was a box-office success. A sequel, Zoolander 2, was released in February 2016, to negative reviews. An animated film, Zoolander: Super Model, was released on Netflix UK in August 2016.
Plot
In New York City, male model Derek Zoolander is at a low point; he is ousted as the top male fashion model by the rising star Hansel, his roommates and colleagues are killed in a "freak gasoline-fight accident", and an attempt to reconnect with his southern New Jersey working class relatives ends with the family rejecting him. Meanwhile, fashion mogul Jacobim Mugatu and Derek's agent Maury Ballstein are charged by the fashion industry with finding a model who can be brainwashed into assassinating the new progressive-leaning Prime Minister of Malaysia, whose policies will prohibit them from retaining cheap child labor in the country. Mugatu hires Derek, whom he had never worked with, to star in the next runway show for his brainwashing plan. It involves Derek being conditioned to attempt the assassination when the song "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood is played.
Matilda Jeffries, feeling responsible for Derek's downfall as she wrote a critical Time article about him, becomes suspicious of Mugatu's offer. She tells her concerns to Derek, but he ignores her. After receiving info through calls from former hand model J.P. Prewett, Matilda and Derek meet him in a cemetery. Prewett reveals that the fashion industry has been behind several of history's political assassinations, including Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy and the brainwashed models are soon killed after they have completed their task. Mugatu's cronies attack the group, forcing Derek and Matilda to flee. They go to Hansel's home, the last place they believe Mugatu will think to look. Derek, Hansel, and Matilda bond, the two male models resolving their differences while partaking of Hansel's collection of narcotics and participating in group sex with Matilda and others. Derek and Hansel break into Maury's office to find evidence of the assassination plot, but they cannot operate his computer to find them.
Derek goes to the runway, and Mugatu's disc jockey plays a remix version of "Relax". This activates Derek's mental programming, only for it to stop after Hansel breaks into the DJ booth and shuts off the turntable. After Hansel smashes the computer on the floor (since he took Matilda saying the incriminating files were "in the computer" literally), a guilt-ridden Maury admits to the conspiracy. Mugatu then attempts to kill the Prime Minister himself by throwing a shuriken at him, but Derek stops it by unleashing his ultimate model look, "Magnum". In Derek's rural hometown, his father Larry watches the event on television, and proudly acknowledges Derek as his son. A few years later, Derek, Hansel, and Maury start "The Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good and Who Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too". Derek and Matilda have a son named Derek Zoolander Jr., who has already developed his first modeling look.