Set in Buenos Aires, the film centers around a relationship between two roommates. Adrian LeDuc (Colin Firth) is a lonely sociopath who is forced to rent out his crazy mother's room due to poor ticket sales at his revival-house cinema. Jack Carney (Hart Bochner), the mysterious new roommate, appears normal, charming, and outgoing at first but it becomes apparent that he is hiding something. They quickly settle into a domestic routine, with Adrian taking over laundry and cooking duties for Jack, and they also begin to bond emotionally. As their friendship develops, Adrian is attracted to him and suppresses his suspicions that Jack may be the government mercenary turned serial killer who has been terrorizing the city. Dead bodies are found in the streets, murdered for political reasons. The other eccentric residents of the building begin to worry as Adrian shows increasing signs that his mother's insanity may be hereditary. Jack has sex with a female neighbour, and it is implied that he also has sex with two male neighbours. Then he falsifies Adrian's passport and prepares to leave Argentina. Unfortunately, the passport is expired and he can't leave. Jack picks up a gay man at the airport and goes to a hotel with him, where he murders him for his passport. Adrian is devastated by the death of his mother, and Jack turns out to be Michael Weller, listed as "dead" by the death squd. Jack kills Claudia (Francesca d'Aloja), the ticket seller at the cinema and part of the committe investigating the political murders. Adrian helps dispose of the body, then eventually kills Jack. The shocking climax of this twisted tale of deceit, perversion and murder reveals the darker side of the human psyche. Suffused with homoerotic overtones and moments of black comedy, the name "Apartment Zero" comes from apartment number, 10 with the 1 missing. Martin Donovan wrote the screenplay and directed.
