| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
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| Science-Fiction |
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| Horror |
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| Fantasy |
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APARTMENT ZERO
Rating:  ½
UK. 1988.
Director/Story – Martin Donovan, Screenplay/Producers – Martin Donovan & David Koepp, Photography – Miguel Rodriguez, Music – Elia Cmiral, Art Direction – Miguel Angel Lumado. Production Company – The Summit Co.
Cast:
Colin Firth (Adrian LeDuc), Hart Bochner (Jack Carney), Dora Bryan (Margaret McKinney), Liz Smith (Mary Louise McKinney), James Telfer (Vanessa), Fabrizio Bentivoglio (Carlos Sanchez-Verne), Mirella D’Angelo (Laura Werpachowsky), Francesca d’Aloja (Claudia)
Plot: Fastidious, neurotic Buenos Aires cinema manager Adrian LeDuc advertises for a roommate and finally decides upon American programmer Jack Carney. A peculiar relationship develops between them, with Adrian insisting on doing everything for Jack. But as the handsome Jack starts to seduce all the other people in the apartment building, both men and the women, Adrian begins to suspect that Jack is not the person he claims to be and starts uncovering evidence that connects him to a terrorist organization.
This is The Odd Couple (1968) amusingly rewritten by way of The Tenant (1976). And here all the potential gay intimations that The Odd Couple joked around but avoided mentioning are brought out in the open and played up to the hilt for all the eyebrow waggling and dominant/submissive theatrics that Colin Firth and Hart Bochner can manage.
The most successful parts of the film come with a dark, scintillating brilliance as the enigmatic Bochner appears as a mirror of the sexual fulfilments of the other tenants in the building. But Martin Donovan is a director with ants in his pants – he playfully twists and turns the film into everything from being an apartment house black comedy (sort of like The Tenant with a sense of humour, albeit strained), to a political thriller and a dark psychological thriller about predatory bisexuality, to a very eccentric ending (again like The Tenant) that fades out as Firth takes on Bochner’s identity.
Unfortunately in juggling all his balls at once Donovan leaves half of them up in the air altogether – it is never made clear why Jack needs to leave the country so desperately, or what he is doing in it in the first place – instead Donovan forgets these elements, turns away and starts to chase completely different angles altogether. There are all the tensions and elements of a horror film and a thriller present but the film is so all over the place and Donovan so antsily contrary that none of them really gel.
Argentinian-born director Donovan should not be confused with the American actor Martin Donovan of Hal Hartley films fame. Co-writer David Koepp soon put some big-name A-budget productions under his belt, including scripts for Jurassic Park (1993) and sequel, The Shadow (1994) and Mission: Impossible (1996), before turning director with the excellent The Trigger Effect (1996), Stir of Echoes (1999) and Secret Window (2004).
Copyright Richard Scheib 1990
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