Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
The Public Eye (1992)
Director: Howard Franklin
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
The main virtue of screenwriter Franklin's debut as director is Pesci's portrayal of Weegee, the famous low-life tabloid photographer of urban disaster, lightly concealed as Bernstein, The Great Bernzini. Watching this isolated character in his nocturnal environment, cursing and kicking corpses into patterns for the shot, seeing the scene freeze into black-and-white for the famous photo - this is the heart of the film. When we track the uncouth artist to a publisher where his work is rejected again, leaving his ego undented, veterans may be reminded of the painter Gulley Jimson in The Horse's Mouth, with the swearing left in. Pesci is unstoppably on throughout. Both the tentative romance with nightclub-owner Kay Levitz (Hershey) - though finely played - and the plot, which concerns a government gas-rationing scandal, seem uneasily grafted on in an attempt to qualify for film noir, though Bernstein does get an incredible live action shot out of it. Good dialogue, nice period recreation, great performances.Author: BC
Cast & crew
Director: Howard Franklin
Producer: Sue Baden-Powell
Cast: Joe Pesci, Barbara Hershey, Stanley Tucci, Jerry Adler, Jared Harris, Richard Riehle full cast
Genre(s): Film Noir
Duration: 99 mins
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now