The Public Eye (1992)

The Public Eye Film Details

Overview: In the early 1940s, an infamous New York paparazzo gets an assignment from a club owner to do a background search on a mysterious gangster, which leads him down a very dangerous path.

Tagline: Murder. Scandal. Crime. No matter what he was shooting, “The Great Bernzini” never took sides, he only took pictures… Except once.

Review: Movie NEEDS to be on DVD stat. This movie is wonderful…wonderful and severely underrated. Its beautifully filmed, beautifully acted, beautifully edited, beautifully photographed, beautifully scored via Mark Isham. This film is the best example i can ever give anyone when talking about film as art. I cannot believe how underrated it is–not only as a forgotten film from the early 90’s but just how forgotten it is as a film starring Joe Pesci. Just today i was in a Staples and i found a DVD set that contained both The Super and With Honors–and while both of those are just dandy if you like Pesci–i just can’t for the life of me understand how both of those are widely available and this jewel is somehow lost. C’Mon Universal–I know you’re not the best at getting your back catalog to DVD but this should be a no brainer–its from the 90’s for god’s sakes. How is something like Splitting Heirs or Pure Luck available from your backlog and this isn’t?!?!?!? If you need a synopsis–Pesci is a very omnipresent shutter bug–he prowls the night taking with his camera and his police scanner frequently crashing crime scenes just to be the first one to get a photograph of the leftover carnage. He lives through his camera if you will. He’s forever dreaming of getting a coffee table book published of his crime scene photos–and one day he gets a phone call from night club owner (and very high on the social ladder) Barbra Hershey who wants Pesci to investigate the shady circumstances of her dead husband, etc, etc. The plot is pure noir of course—i hate to say given how much i love it, but the plot is actually kind of irrelevant—the whole point of this gorgeous movie is just to bask in the wonderful atmosphere the movie provides. I mean the plot is fine–Pesci soon finds himself over his head in corruption, and feuding gangsters, and etc–and there are a lot of wonderful moments throughout that come from Pesci’s character reacting to the latest obstacles that the film’s plot is throwing in his path–(LOVE that one quick scene of him squirming on the floor while the gangster interrogating him is calling him a cockroach and Pesci lifts his fingers to simulate a cockroach….there are just too many quick visual scenes like that throughout.) but again the whole beauty of the movie is just the wonderful wonderful atmosphere. This is a film where truly everything comes together just perfectly to form a glorious movie experience. (i know that sounds dumb to say–but its truly one of the best films i can recommend to anyone interested in just observing how a film can function as both a movie and as art.) It helps of course if you’re a fan of black and white photography and classic film noir–but you don’t really have to be to just sit back and enjoy this one either. (The end shootout in particular is so beautifully shot—and so stylistically original–I can’t for the life of me think of one other film that has even tried to rip it off over the years.) Howard Franklin (who directed this as well as my own personal favorite film Bill Murray’s Quick Change) sadly never got to make another serious film along the lines of this one–and that i think is a real shame because judging just from this one film–he could’ve been one of the best today instead of just a one off director. (I’m sure it didn’t help that this prob cost Universal a pretty penny to make and only eked out about 3 mil in total–and i remember being in 5th grade when this came out–this had a pretty substantial campaign behind it because i clearly remember seeing the ads for it when it came out, so right there i know universal must’ve been expecting something to happen from this) I can’t implore all of you hard enough to check this one out–even if it means watching it on a plain olé’ VHS tape (altho i believe there are torrents of it available to download) Good Lord if there’s one movie–if there’s ONE film that i wish would see the light of DVD right now it would be this one. This Thing Never Shuts Off. You Can’t Shut It Off. Throw In The Hat. People Love To See The Dead Guy’s Hat. God I Love This Movie!

Country: United States

Language: English

Duration: 99 min

Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance

Also known as: La mira indiscreta,The Public Eye,L’oeil public,Reporter,A Testemunha Ocular,Фотограф,Der Reporter,Repórter Indiscreto,El ojo público,Око на обществото,Το μάτι του ρεπόρτερ,Paljastava silmä,Oko javnosti,Med obeväpnat öga,Occhio indiscreto,Gyilkosság villanófényben