Primal Fear, a masterpiece in story telling

 


They don't make movies like Primal Fear anymore. I am no longer a kid and this aint the 90s, I think to myself as I torture myself watching another rubbish movie churned out in the 2020s. How Primal Fear got 77% on Rotten Tomatoes illustrates how as a writer it is impossible to please everyone. Even the best story has its haters and some people just cannot appreciate great storytelling. Primal Fear deserved 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

It is about 2 hours long but it feels like twenty minutes. To summarise the beautiful story, Richard Gere plays a lawyer Martin Vail who has to defend Aaron Stampler played by Edward Norton. Aaron Stampler is accused of murdering Archbishop Rushman. Aaron denies committing the murder. Long story short it is revealed that Stampler has two personalities and sometimes blacks out and does things he cannot remember. After Stampler takes the stand and blacks out after being questioned he is found not guilty by reason of insanity and will spend a short time in a psychiatric ward.

The film ends with Aaron revealing that he had been pretending to black out and that he had played Martin Vail for a fool. That plot twist left me in a state of astonishment. I did not see that coming.

Primal Fear is based on a novel by the same name written by William Diehl. Primal Fear is the first book in a trilogy followed by Show of Evil and Reign in Hell. I wonder why the two following books were not adapted into movies as well. Is it too late to make a second and third movie?

The lesson in Primal Fear like in Se7en is that sometimes it makes sense for the bad guy to win and for the good guy to lose. 

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