The Public [DVD]

I'm going to state when and where the film is set, so if you don't know and don't want to know then you might want to skip what follows.I've watched Emilio Estevez's “The Way” many times over the last decade, and it's a film that I will hopefully watch again a few more times yet. So when I stumbled across a trailer for “The Public” – Emilio Estevez's first feature film as director since “The Way”, I was soon placing an order for it on Amazon. The trailer didn't exactly have me overwhelmed with excitement but the trailer suggested to me that the film could be promising – or so I thought.“The Public” is set during a bitterly cold winter during which people are succumbing to hypothermia on the streets of Cincinnati.I think that attention to detail in a film should be very important. A particular bugbear for me is the condition of clothing in films. So that for example when soldiers are on a muddy battlefield one should expect their uniforms to be muddy and not (as is so often the case) in pristine condition having just come from the props department and from the dry-cleaners before that. Where “The Public” is concerned it is not so much an issue to do with clothing so much as to de with when a film is set during a perilously cold spell during winter, then everywhere outside and everyone outside should look cold. Filming took place in January apparently. Perhaps they were experiencing a warm spell, I don't know, but, people should have looked cold, extremely cold, painfully cold. You will have a job to find anyone's breath in the shape of a cold weather vapour cloud in “The Public” but the actors could have tried to act like they were feeling the bitter cold. Nitpicking? Well possibly, possibly not, but there are too many other things that let this film down for me. As well as directing and writing this film, Emilio Estevez plays the part of one of the central characters – Stuart Goodson, a man who, not unlike the film, has his heart in the right place but Stuart Goodson seemed a pretty uninteresting and at times a dull character to me which doesn't really bode well for a lead character in a film.If a synopsis is known then I'd say that it is an admirable story to convey, the film has a very capable director and a superb cast of well known names and familiar faces with such fine actors and actresses as Alec Baldwin, Christian Slater, Jeffrey Wright, Taylor Schilling, and Emilio Estevez amongst others and yet “The Public” was for me a big let down. Perhaps I should have realised it could be, when I wasn't overwhelmed with excitement when I watched the trailer that I saw for it.The film has good moments though, and especially some of the requests for information at the Library's front desk and I would have liked to see more of those scenes as actually they were better than much of the film.Not a film I could recommend, not a film I'll be watching again unfortunately.On the DVD (ASIN: B084P5DQCC) you get:“The Public” (1 hour 59 minutes)Scene SelectionSet Up:Stereo 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1Optional English HOH SubtitlesTrailers

Just finished watching this film. It reminded me initially of John Q with Denzel Washington and although not as intense as the aforementioned film, it non-the-less provides food for thought.

A great way to spend an evening, this film will make you think and laugh, cry, and go through all the emotions. A great film from a very thoughout storyteller.

Wife saw this and enjoyed the movie

As advertised