Primal Fear
★★★
This has to be one of the best, bad movies that I've seen in a long time. For whatever reason, I never sat down with this film despite always hearing about the legendary twist-ending that was likened to The Usual Suspects and Fight Club. Despite having my guard up, I still was quite thrown off by the surprises that this film throws at you. Did they ultimately work? Not at all, but I really appreciate the efforts of all involved. Especially Edward Norton, who knocks the role out of the park. He is seemingly asked to do the impossible and not come off as laughable. His performance is stellar, but why his character does the things that he does doesn't make sense at all.
Everything else in this legal thriller is clichéd and questionable, but I was completely enthralled. No right-minded attorney would make the decisions that these legal teams concoct. Yet, I had to know what was going to happen next. It helps that this movie has an amazing cast of actors that I've always loved to watch (Laura Linney, John Mahoney, Frances McDormand, Terry O'Quinn, Andre Braugher, Maura Tierney) and they shine despite the dialogue that is handed to them. Richard Gere has not necessarily ever been touted as one of the best actors to come out of Hollywood, though he definitely has the charisma of a star. I've always been a little complacent about how I've felt about his performances, but he is just plain bad in this movie. I more so blame the director (Gregory Hoblit) because he doesn't know how to reign in Gere's fits of rage or charm. The editing is horrible in this movie and Hoblit lets the camera linger on situations far too often. There's this one scene where Martin Vail (Gere) is chewing out his team outside of the courtroom and it's perhaps the funniest thing I've seen, unintentionally so, for such big names to be in the scene.
Still, I will implore people to watch Primal Fear solely so I can have a discussion about it with them. It's an experience and if you are a fan of legal dramas, it manipulates the tropes with wild abandon. It's a crap show, but a very entertaining one.
