Primal Fear

Primal Fear is a movie in which Richard Gere gives one of his best performances yet. Primal Fear is more than just a show case for Richard Gere’s acting abilities, it also show cases the acting abilities of all the supporting cast, including one great performance by Edward Norton.

Primal Fear follows the life of Martin Vail (Richard Gere) who is a high profile lawyer that is known to most all in the city of Chicago and gets magazine cover interviews. Vail chases high profile cases instead of ambulances, he believes that everyone should get a good defense, and he doesn’t care if the person is guilty or not, he just wants to defend them. That is until he runs in to Aaron Stampler, who is accused of the murder of the Archbishop of the church where Stampler is an altar boy.

Primal Fear has many threads running throughout the movie, and eventually they all tie together, but it is not so obvious how they will. The script for Primal Fear is literate and does not treat the audience like idiots.

This movie serves to show case the acting talents of more than just Richard Gere. Along with Edward Norton as Aaron Stampler, Laura Linney, John Mahoney, Alfre Woodard, Frances McDormand all give well balanced performances throughout the film.

I highly recommend Primal Fear, it is a smart well written film that can’t be missed.