Apartment Zero (1988, Martin Donovan)

Starting Apartment Zero, I couldn’t remember why I’d wanted to see the film. I had a feeling it was going to be something I’d since dismissed and it was–Apartment Zero is David Koepp’s first screenwriting credit. He co-wrote the film. Koepp’s an odd person to look for, since his writing is so vanilla and indistinct, regardless of quality, it’d be like looking for William Goldman. There’s actually a lot of personality to Apartment Zero, but I imagine it came from the director (who co-wrote with Koepp). There’s very little to say in terms of the writing. While there’s some funny stuff, most of its success comes from the direction (the director’s name is Martin Donovan). Donovan has decent composition, but does great work with movement–both moving subjects and moving cameras. There’s a hilarious chase scene and then there’s some other good, fast camera work. The humor in the script tends to fail–except maybe the characters lifted from “Fawlty Towers.” Near the end, most of the humor is in the dialogue and it all falls flat.

Besides the direction, the film looks fantastic. Buenos Aires is apparently a wonderful place to shoot a movie. It looks warm and foreign, but still somehow familiar. The cinematography is perfect, with the low budget, grainy film stock creating a mood. Also on the technical end is the sound design. Apartment Zero has great sound.

As for the performances, Colin Firth and Hart Bochner… Bochner’s visibly familiar since he’s the jerk in Die Hard, but his performance in Apartment Zero is actually quite good for much of the film. Firth is not any good, but it’s barely his fault. His character–and the film in general (at the beginning, it reminded me–ha ha–of Delicatessen)–has no depth. It’s absurd, in the waste of time sense of the word. It’s also one of those wonderful films where, once it finds its below average level, it still manages to get worse in the last five minutes. It doesn’t exactly have a surprise ending, but it’s got something close. Whatever it’s called, it’s damn lame.

ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Martin Donovan; screenplay by Donovan and David Koepp, story by Donovan; director of photography, Miguel Rodriguez; edited by Conrad M. Gonzalez; music by Elia Cmiral; production designer, Miguel Angel Lumaldo; produced by Donovan and Koepp; released by Skouras Pictures.

Starring Hart Bochner (Jack Carney), Colin Firth (Adrian LeDuc), Dora Bryan (Margaret McKinney), Liz Smith (Louise McKinney), Fabrizio Bentivoglio (Carlos Sanchez-Verne), James Tefler (Vanessa) and Mirella D’Angelo (Laura Werpachowsky).