Der Reporter

I appreciate that this film was more than a homage to film noir but actually advanced the genre to include populist themes and even women's issues. In many ways, this is film brun because so much effort is made to evoke the brown tones of the time which brought a warmer, less paranoid tone to the proceedings. Brown can be earthy or rich. Men wear brown suits and hats and chew on brown cigars. The nightclub is paneled in rich brown wood. Kay Levitz has brown hair. The script and direction showed a love for the time but a cynicism, too, of government collusion with organized crime to make money at the expense of the fighting men and the citizens during a time of war. I enjoyed the relationships between the characters and was touched by the pan of the cheering crowd of real people at the end, not usually seen in noir. To add to the comments about the actors: I also enjoyed Jerry Adler as Bernzini's friend and was intrigued by Jared Harris's Danny the Doorman.

Movies should be able to transport you to the time and place without much effort. "The Public Eye" does so. I saw this in -- of all places -- a redeye bus trip from New York to DC, and this only enhanced the viewing enjoyment. This is definitely a movie to "get into the mood" for 40's noir, down to the gritty life of the City After Dark.

This one keeps getting overlooked as one of the best of the 90's. See this one.

Well, I've just seen the movie tonight and Pesci is certainly great in it. I finally saw a side of him that I've never seen before. In almost all his other movies, he got on my nerves, but in this one, he managed to make me respect his acting. I have to agree with the other comments. I've never heard of this movie and that's too bad. It's very touching and gave me a feeling of je ne sais quoi... It's a very attractive movie in a quiet sort of way. I don't know. I really enjoyed it and it's too bad that it hasn't been credited as one of Pesci's best (if not THE BEST) movies.

This is a wonderful piece of work. The visual look of the movie is simply fantastic. But it should had been better if it was in black and white! In this case, Public Eye could be seen as a 1930's gangster movie. But the color of this movie looks like black and white. This film had anything I love about the Bogart, Robinson and Cagney movies. It's also give a chance to Joe Pesci to plays perhaps the role of his life. He's fabulous! Hard cigar smoking little guy ain't afraid of anything to have a good photography. He thinks big cities photos is art. He's also very moving, in the way Ernest Borgnine was in Marty, when he falls in love with wonderful Barbara Hershey. This is a great movie, one of the best American movie of the 1990's.

I first saw The Public Eye about ten years ago knowing nothing about it in advance. This movie has really stayed with me over the years. It's very rich in atmosphere and I really bought into the characters. The whole cast was strong and the writing was very good. I read one review that complained that the romance wasn't believable. On the surface that might be understandable but the quality of the acting and the writing completely erased the issue for me. The 1940's setting was portrayed very effectively and the music added so much to the story. The scene with Kay Levitz going through Bernzini's photo album was very moving and captured the whole story in a nutshell for me. I strongly recommend this forgotten gem.