Review of Primal Fear (1996) by Filipeneto — 23 Aug 2018

This film is based on the judgment of an altar boy accused of the death of a Catholic bishop, so it's like dozens of other "court movies", where all revolves around a case, and lawyer-client relationships. What is different here? The case involves the Catholic Church (and that always attracts the audiences), the altar boy seems unable to hurt a fly and the lawyer seems pretty obnoxious most of the time.

Richard Gere has played a good role in this film, one of the few decent roles in this actor's career to date, and has shown that he is a good, talented actor, who deserves better characters in the future. Perhaps even better was the performance of Edward Norton, in the role of the altar boy Aaron. He becomes so credible and sincere that we believe him to the end, and this only serves to make the end a twist even more amazing than it would be otherwise. That's enough for the movie to deserve a chance from the public.