Public Access *** (1993, Ron Marquette) – Classic Movie Review 13,518

Bryan Singer makes his feature film debut with the 1993 American drama film Public Access, starring Ron Marquette as a clean-cut drifter who ends up in a small town called Brewster and hosts his own cable TV show called Our Town.

Bryan Singer makes his feature film debut with the 1993 American drama film Public Access starring Ron Marquette. Singer also wrote the screenplay with Christopher McQuarrie and Michael Feit Dougan.

An unexplained stranger, Whiley Pritcher (Marquette), arrives in the nowhere town of Brewster and takes time on the local cable channel, hosting his own show called Our Town, to ask what and who is wrong with the town.

Whiley Pritcher (Marquette) uncovers a web of duplicity as he worms out uncomfortable truths, rather like Spencer Tracy did before him in Bad Day at Black Rock.

This early offbeat little gem by Singer, director of his follow-up film The Usual Suspects (1995), intrigues, grips and generally works very well.

It was shot in 18 days for $250,000 and screened at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, where it was joint winner of the Grand Jury Prize (shared with Ruby in Paradise). It also won the Critics Award at the Deauville American Film Festival, France. But it was not released in cinemas in the US.

The cast are Ron Marquette, Dina Brooks, Burt Williams, Larry Maxwell, Charles Kavanaugh, Brandon Boyce, Leigh Hunt, John Renshaw, Jennifer McManus, Margaret Kerry, Elizabeth Ince, Randall Slavin, Liz Dilts, Heidi Van Lier, John Ellis, Shawn Ellis, Christopher McQuarrie, Matt Jacobson, Ross Collins, and Virginia Perry.

Singer recalled: ‘This production was fraught with 100 times more turmoil than Usual Suspects — every day was a crisis.’

Singer comments about Public Access and The Usual Suspects: ‘The two films are similar in the notion of things not always being what they seem. They’re also about audiences’ projections on a stranger.’

McQuarrie wrote The Usual Suspects, for which he received Best Screenplay awards from the British and American Academy Awards. Later, McQuarrie became a frequent collaborator with Tom Cruise, writing and directing Jack Reacher (2012) and four Mission: Impossible films: Rogue Nation (2015), Fallout (2018), Dead Reckoning  (2023) and The Final Reckoning (2025).

Public Access is directed by Bryan Singer, runs 89 minutes, is made by Occidental Studios and Cinemabeam, is released by Triboro, is written by Bryan Singer, Michael Feit Dougan and Christopher McQuarrie, is shot by Bruce Douglas Johnson, is produced by Bryan Singer and Kenneth Kokin, is scored by John Ottman, and is designed by Jan Sessler.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,518

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