Hubris and horror collide in legal drama 'Primal Fear'
By Parvathi Nayar Narayan
JAKARTA (JP): "Primal" fear is the sort that hits you in the gut, invoking a nameless, inarticulate fear of evil. That is the sensation felt by the public, and even the investigators, over the death of Archbishop Rushman (Stanley Anderson), one of the best-loved dignitaries of the city of Chicago, in the movie Primal Fear.
It is a particularly bloody and gruesome murder, with elements of mutilation and torture. What type of subhuman or satanic creature could have been the perpetrator of this crime?
Surely not the utterly naive Aaron Stampler (Edward Norton). At 19, he's barely an adult, and an inarticulate country bumpkin.
However, the evidence against him is overwhelming, to the point of his being placed at the scene of the crime and being found with bloodstained clothes. Despite his claims of innocence, his story is so farfetched it seems unlikely anyone would believe him. He doesn't really stand a prayer.
The movie is based on William Diehl's book of the same name. The book was loaded with every imaginable -- and unimaginable -- twist, shock and perversion, ranging from mutilation to teenage pregnancy to abuse. Beyond the sensationalism, admittedly, it was an extremely "unputdownable" read; the sort of book you'd sit glued to, right through a 20-hour flight, ignoring unpalatable food, cramped feet and even the stewardess tapping you for your third breakfast (usually just as you had finally dozed off to sleep).
The necessary simplifications have been made to translate the story from the two-dimensional world of words to the time- constrained one of films. The brush strokes are broader and while many subtleties are lost, what is left is still interesting. The protagonist, Martin Vail (Richard Gere) is an unusual hero, being an upmarket version of the ambulance-chaser category of lawyer. He is quite frank about wanting the big bucks, the spot on the evening news and the publicity that goes with high-profile court cases. This is not the icing. This is really the bread and butter he thrives on. Not perhaps the most sympathetic of heroes, but Gere plays him with his usual charm.
Martin Vail, when he chases after the Stampler case and takes it "pro bono", couldn't care less about the boy's innocence or otherwise. To him, it is just the sort of sensationalist case that will test the limits of his considerable intellect and get him banner headlines. With him, it is a case of wanting to win, coupled with a sort of Greek hubris or arrogance that no matter what the odds, he can do it.
As perhaps the Greeks could have told him that it is unwise to tempt the gods by flaunting this arrogance. Emotion intrudes into the Stampler case and muddies the waters. The prosecuting attorney, Janet Venable (Laura Linney) is Vail's former lover, who has unfinished business with him. Vail himself has unresolved issues with State Attorney John Shaughnessy (John Mahoney), who has a deep interest in the case. And, unusual for him, Vail gets involved on a personal level with his client. He believes in Stampler and feels the boy has gotten a messed-up deal from life.
What unfolds is a courtroom drama that, while full of twists and turns, is somewhat high on theatrics as well. It reminds one anew of how skewered the justice system is, which depends on the resources, dramatic skills and personalities of the lawyers to win or lose cases. Sure, this is fiction. But reality has a way of being uncomfortably close in spirit, if not in style. The truth, at any rate, would seem to be a fungible commodity.
Anyway, those are not really the concerns of Primal Fear.The movie tends to be glib at times, the transitions coming on too quickly and easily. And like many over-the-top clever plots, too close a look at it reveals gaps, with not all threads tied. Still, it is a very good directorial debut from Gregory Hoblit, whose experience hitherto has been in television. But an even more impressive debut is by Norton as Stampler. He is at such ease in front of the camera, it is actually hard to believe he was facing it for the first time.
The courtroom drama is a genre of movie making and books, for which many of us have a distinct partiality. Which is why, of course, so many movies of that ilk have been made, some brilliant, some pure garbage, and most somewhere in between. This plenitude of legal thrillers also makes it harder for individual movies in this category to stand out and be differentiated. Thus, moviemakers add other components to the legal brew: romance, forensics, unusual protagonists, psychology.
Gregory Hoblit tries with the latter two and the result is essentially a combination of legal drama and psychological thriller. Primal Fear is no reinvention of the wheel, but it is at least a very well-done refinement of it.