Bryan Singer's directorial debut "Public Access" is half of a great movie. What starts off as an engrossing drama-of-sorts of enigmatic stranger entering a small town and paying to have his own TV program on Public Access soon enough left me feeling frustrated and uncertain.
Frustration and uncertainty are not flaws if a film has a sense of purpose about itself, some measured ambiguity. The stranger in the town of Brewster is Whiley Pritcher (Ron Marquette), and he waltzes into this town with two bags and some cash. He checks in to a cheap apartment where the landlord was a former mayor. Wiley then goes to the local library and does extensive, all-day research into the town of Brewster. Why is Whiley here and why he wishes to start a TV show called "Our Town" is mystifying and intriguing. His presence on TV is solid, he's a bespectacled, eager and professional young man who clearly has been involved in similar programs in the past. When townspeople start calling, they complain about their neighbors anonymously. When Whiley receives more threatening calls after asking viewers with a signature catchphrase ("What's wrong with Brewster?"), he starts antagonizing them.
"Public Access" offers precious little insight into Whiley. We learn he has vivid, sweat-inducing nightmares and he keeps some some black-and-white photo presumably of his father in his room. His intent in this town and with the show that makes him into a minor celebrity is never clear. This guy starts killing a couple of people in town who might interfere with the town's presumed economic progression, again assuming that is the case, and that in itself would've made for a fascinating psychological and small-town political thriller. As played by Marquette, Whiley looks like the evil cousin of Clark Kent and is well-cast and does what he can to be an imposing threat, a sort of shadowy, detached figure with an agenda. But what is the agenda? And when we learn that the current mayor has practically sold his soul for a selfish economic boost where he benefits and the town loses, Whiley feels his job is done. Huh?
Wiley is either a contract killer who jumps from town to town to correct either the need for progression or the lack of it, or just simply a serial killer who just happens to love hosting TV shows. Singer is a hell of a director ("Usual Suspects" is still his crowning achievement) and can work well with actors but, after seeing this film twice, I just throw my hands up at what it all means.
