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A thoughtful moral can go a long way toward elevating a film, but if a script can't deliver its message in an engaging and believable manner, then the viewing experience can start to feel more like a lesson than a story. Sadly, that's exactly what happens to director Emilio Estevez's "The Public." Though an admirable and sincere effort, the movie never manages to fully realize the characters and drama surrounding its well-meaning themes. It's still a worthwhile film, but a bit more nuance could have helped to convey its point of view with more lasting resonance.

Set in Cincinnati during one of the coldest nights of the year, the story follows a group of homeless patrons as they stage a sit-in at the Public Library in order to escape the dangerously low temperatures outside. Empathizing with their plight, one of the librarians, Stuart Goodson (Emilio Estevez), helps to barricade the group inside the building. Though it's simply meant as a peaceful demonstration to keep everyone safe, the police soon intervene and attempt to disband the gathering. As escalating tensions threaten to derail ongoing crisis negotiations, Goodson struggles to keep the situation from completely spiraling out of control.

Tackling timely social themes related to class and government bureaucracy, the script does a solid job of building its case and underlying message, crafting a humanist tale about community and compassion while shining a light on society's marginalized homeless citizens. Unfortunately, the stand-off drama that develops never rings completely true and the characters feel a bit undercooked and thinly realized.

The cast is quite strong, with an ensemble that includes Jeffery Wright, Michael Kenneth Williams, Alec Baldwin, Jena Malone, Christian Slater, Gabrielle Union, and Taylor Schilling. But the dialogue often comes across as too expository, with characters simply serving as mouthpieces for narrative information or thematic bullet points. Likewise, the movie's depiction of the homeless and mentally ill feels sanitized and simplistic, lacking a realistic edge. The film's antagonists are also quite lacking, with Slater's selfish politician and Union's self-absorbed news reporter serving as extremely one-dimensional foils.

What's worse, the whole central conflict never really feels believable, and it becomes clear that the entire stand-off could have easily been avoided if certain characters simply communicated better. Instead, what we get is a pretty contrived, forced, and generic back-and-forth between the patrons and the police, continually escalating the drama despite no real motivation to do so.

Thankfully, Estevez does end up nailing the film's climax which, without spoiling too much, features a stripped-down, emotional, and amusingly absurd distillation of the movie's core philosophy. Sure, the scene's visual metaphor is obvious and utterly ridiculous, but the final images perfectly sum up what the director has to say, diffusing the crisis through a humorous reminder of the humility and humanity that unites us all.

Ultimately, I ended up connecting more with what "The Public" has to say, than how it actually goes about saying it. The end result still has merit, but the material could have been executed with a bit more depth and refinement. Well-meaning yet disappointingly simplistic, the film's script just doesn't have the nuance necessary to create truly believable drama and "lived-in" characters, resulting in a slightly forced and ham-fisted feel. The message here is admirable, it's just a shame it couldn't have been articulated with more complexity and cinematic impact.