Apartment Zero

Adrian LeDuc (Colin Firth) runs a failing cinema in Buenos Aires. Unable to stay solvent enough to pay the bills for his institutionalized mother and make ends meet, Adrian advertises for a boarder. After a number of strange characters apply, one Jack Carney (Hart Bochner) enters, lounges near a framed picture of James Dean, and Adrian's heart practically soars through the ceiling. But the relationship is uneasy: whereas Adrian is reserved to the point of xenophobia, Jack is very outgoing, and he soon strikes up conversations with the other tenants in the apartment house: a drag queen; a pair of elderly--and quite nosey--women; and a young wife whose husband is always mysteriously away during the evenings. Settling like a nervous tic over the first half of the film is a series of gruesome murders, which--it finally dawns on the audience--must be the handiwork of either Adrian or Jack. The question is: is Jack the nasty ripper or is Adrian, the momma's boy, pulling a little Norman Bates action? Argentinean filmmaker Martin Donovan, drawing heavily on the master suspense director Hitchcock's style, spares no cinematic trick in this comically macabre mini-masterpiece. The identity of the killer is only the beginning... Beautiful cinematography, excellent performances from Firth and Bochner, and a first-rate script by director Donovan deliver one of the most ghastly humorous sleepers in quite some time. Highly recommended. (R. Pitman) [DVD Review—Feb. 6, 2007—Anchor Bay, 124 min., R, $19.98—Making its first appearance on DVD, 1988's Apartment Zero sports a so-so transfer and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. DVD extras include two audio commentaries (one by writer-director Martin Donovan; the other by co-writer/producer David Koepp and filmmaker Steven Soderbergh). Bottom line: while it would have been nice to see the film restored, this excellent thriller is still well worth picking up on DVD.]