Public Access (Widescreen, Vanguard)
Picture: D Sound: C- Extras: D Film: C-
If I had not known that
Bryan Singer was responsible behind 1993’s Public
Access, it might have gone right into the garbage and that would have been
my final comment towards the film, but instead I was intrigued for the simple
fact that someone who has proved to be talented was responsible for this film,
which even as a debut film leaves a lot to be desired and it is also amazing
that in just two short years that filmmaker went from something like this to The Usual Suspects. I was in awe!
Public Access is a film that takes delight in unoriginality by standing proudly on
just about every cliché that has ever been written and is done with such poor
taste and judgment that even decent direction cannot save the script because it
falls on its very own face. The story is
set up rather conventionally as we start out with our typical small-town in
American where everything seems to be in order, that is until a visitor comes
around. That man is Whiley Pritcher, and
at first his intentions seem good hearted, until he begins his own local cable
TV show and begins asking the question, ‘what is wrong with Brewster (the small
town they live in)?’ The guts of this
man is unreal as he comes along without knowing anything about this town and
starts raising the blood pressure of the good hearted folks of this town and
begins a battle among them as dark secrets begin to unfold.
This might seem like an
interesting way to look at the deem scheming that is located below the surface
of even the quietest towns and that all it takes is someone to shake up the
water and sooner than later it becomes a cloudy mess, because all the dirt and
sediment has been laying deep down. One
obvious problem within the film is that there are no likable characters, and
even something like Taxi Driver
(1976), despite having very hard to like characters, still had people that we
wanted to care about. With this film, we
despise the ones we come to know, are annoyed by the ones that we know even
longer, and are upset that we don’t know much about the rest of them. This is the film written by Christopher
McQuarrie, but also had the contribution of Singer and Michael Feit Dougan, so
who knows what was contributed by each.
This particular DVD
edition is not the first time the film has been released onto DVD, but this
version by Vanguard is a notch above the previous disc available here in the U.S. by Image.
This does not appear to be the same transfer since this 1.85 X 1
presentation appears to be slightly better, but not by much. Colors are all over the place and detail is
very much lacking. The biggest issue is
in the amount of detail that becomes smeary, which is partially due to this
being a lower budget debut film, but a good transfer would still help
matters.
The sound is a problem as
well since it was recorded in Ultra Stereo analog, which cannot come close to
Dolby A-type Stereo in clarity. The DVD
is an a Pro Logic surround mix, but essentially comes across as basic stereo,
which even sounds more like mono and compressed at that! You are not going to get much surround
activity and even the dialogue is predominately in the center channel and
travels outside of that very rarely.
No extras here, but with
Singer going on and making some bigger films (the X-Men series) one can only be intrigued by how he got his beginning,
but I am afraid that most will be unimpressed by this amateur work and even the
best royalties on the DVD format can’t keep this wreck afloat.
- Nate Goss
