Movie Review: Primal Fear

7/10

Hmph... Primal Fear with Richard Gere. Sounds like a great (rhyming) idea for a TV show with White-Dress-Uniform putting on some camo gear and heading into the jungle to hunt a different wild animal every week. Seriously that would be a great show, and the inevitable mauling of one of the world's more punchable leading men (Tom Cruise being the most, of course) would really bring in the viewers.

This film is not about that. There's very little "Primal Fear" going on here - in fact, it's a courtroom drama. About the same length and depth as three episodes of Law And Order. Nah, that's doing it a disservice. Three episodes of Murder One (season one of course).


Right, I'll set the scene. Obvious murder suspect is defended by morally ambiguous yet hunky lawyer. With me so far? Yep. That's the plot sorted, or so I thought.

I really was expecting, despite all the backhanded compliments and the notion that this was Gere's best film (or is that a backhanded compliment?), to be disappointed. I mean, it's just another one man against the (hot, sexy) system thing, right?

Wrong.

Sure, we've got a hot, sexy foil for the system, but here it's Laura Linney, a sex object who can act? What the hell? Maybe I'm a freak (scrub the "maybe" if you've met me) but I've never really found her "hot" before. Sure she's a very good actress, sure she made one twentieth of Love Actually watchable, thus saving me from suicide, but not hot. Until this film. Maybe I have a thing about women in power suits. Anyhoo, her performance and that of the accused (who I will come to in a moment) seem to be the catalyst for Gere to finally come out of his shell.

Yeah, he still does the "sighing as acting" thing he's famous for, and the patented "Gere Doe Eyes" come out once too often, but he does an above average job in the main role. And if that's not a backhanded compliment, I don't know what is. His Martin Vail is a man trying to do the right thing, floundering against his own good judgement and desire for atonement for some unspecified dodgy business in the past.

This dodgy business (never explained) happened while he was a state's attorney (i.e. Prosecution) under the control of John Mahoney, Frasier's Dad.

Hmm? Well, if you're going to do a show for that many seasons, get ready to be called Frasier's dad forever, mate. How do you think Chandler out of Friends feels?

Vail left the DA's office and became a defence lawyer, and it is this fundamental split in his mind that is key to unfolding events (careful, Algo, avoid the spoilers). Basically, he's certain that this defendant is innocent, despite all evidence to the contrary and, like Paul Newman in "The Verdict"(not a dissimilar movie), is quite prepared to go to the very outer limits of the law to do it.

So it's clear to see where the crucial role is here, right? Sean Penn knows, so does Daniel Day Lewis. The peachy role is the accused killer, boys! These are the parts Oscars were invented for. So it's a very good thing when, unbeknownst to me before watching, our accused turns out to be the great Ed Norton (of stealing scenes from behind a pile of cloth fame) and was his feature debut.

And what a debut!

In their first scene together you can almost see the big name star wilt under the pressure of matching this guys acting. That the psychiatrist brought in to talk to him is played by another great, Frances McDormand, only serves to reinforce that if you were going to act opposite Norton, you'd better have your game face on, buster.

Cripes! If I hadn't seen Empire of the Sun I'd have a new favourite debut. He's that good.

The picture doesn't quite match up to his performance, but the twisty turny plot and final revelation are, as me dear old mam would say, the ONLY ending.

Downsides? Well, there's an unnecessarily long lingering filming of a certain "video", a couple of the fringe characters are a little broadly drawn for my taste (stern but fair judge! homeless ex altar boy! long suffering assistant! evil corrupt officials!) and its a pretty small scale drama, avoiding many of the wider implications e.g. despite the fact the accused is publicly called "The Butcher Boy" nobody questions the medias role. or whether he could possibly get a fair trial. In fact the media's role is pretty much ignored which I found surprising.

These issues aside, the whole thing was an enjoyable couple of hours.

Not an all time classic, but worth seeing even if just for the birth of Ed Norton's career, though some of his later choices have been... er... eccentric, to say the least (Italian Job, Illusionist, Incredible Hulk... maybe he should stay away from "I" movies) he is still an enormous talent. Maybe with a braver agent he'd become one of the true greats.

Til next time, here's hoping you still haven't seen the strangers (please don't)

A