Review of Primal Fear (1996) by Tim S — 04 Sep 2012

This one seemingly slipped under my radar and I didn't discover it until recently, but Primal Fear is a perfectly good courtroom/thriller movie that's much smarter and much darker than it appears on the surface.

Everybody does a good job with the material, even Laura Linney whom I usually find to be nauseating. There are only a couple of things going against it. First of all, it seems to be very cliche'd and tiresome material on the surface, which it ends not being.

Second, the title. This movie is not about fear in any state, so I don't really know how it got the title that it did. It's a better title in a marketing sense, I guess, but it doesn't fit the movie at all.

It's winner, and definitely worth seeing, but could've introduced itself a bit better.