Breakfast Clubber, Emilio Estevez, is causing more trouble in the library, this time as a rogue librarian rather than a rogue student.
The Public focuses on an extraordinary day in the life of the Cincinnati Public Library during a particularly harsh winter. With an ever-growing number of homeless, many who shelter there during the day, the library's resources are stretched to breaking point.
When a number of the homeless refuse to spend another freezing night outside, they hunker down. As a standoff between them (plus a sympathetic librarian) and the authorities plays out you'll wonder if this story should have, 'based on true events' in its opening credits. It doesn't. But this gives Estevez, who writes, directs and stars as the beleaguered librarian, plenty of wriggle-room to explore a plethora of social issues. Unfortunately, this proves to be one of the film's many problems.
Not least of its shortcomings are Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater in very utilitarian roles; Baldwin, a police negotiator, and Slater, a Trump-esque mayoral candidate, provide the callous face of right-wing politics. Both flesh out its political stance but also bring a swathe of needless subplots that are left unresolved.
There's also an unsavoury whiff of "white saviour" keeping the capitalist menace at bay and when one homeless man says, "They're looking at us like a bunch of crazy angry n*****s. It's up to you to prove them wrong Mr. Goodson [Estevez]" the film makes clear who it thinks the power brokers are.
