Apartment Zero

With APARTMENT ZERO, director-cowriter Martin Donovan uses a thriller format to cleverly fashion a diatribe against the oppressive Argentinean military regime that was responsible for countless brutal "disappearances." Set in the post-junta era, this rococo suspense film centers on Adrian

LeDuc (Colin Firth), a fastidious, paranoid Argentinean. Politically neutral and socially self-ostracized, LeDuc lives an uneventful life until finances force him to seek a roommate. Like a reincarnation of eternal movie rebel and sex symbol James Dean, Jack Carney (Hart Bochner) enters his life.

But the mysterious stranger proves to be all things to all people in the apartment building. Jealous of Carney's many involvements, LeDuc becomes suspicious. Their psychological gamesmanship is intercut with news reports of a serial killer whose methods recall the paid assassins once employed by

the military government. For much of its running time, APARTMENT ZERO makes fascinating use of its engrossing subtext of lonely misfits and social outcasts. Regrettably, director Donovan doesn't trust the strengths of the screenplay he cowrote with David Koepp. In the final reel, the black humor

that has been subtly woven into the film is undermined by Donovan's suddenly heavy hand. Still, the film's intriguing perversity compensates for the excesses of its plot and presentation.