Rating of
2/4
"Primal Fear" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 05/05/12
First off, what on earth is with that appalling title?! It sounds like a straight to DVD Van Damme movie about dinosaurs or something...In reality it's yet another ho-hum courtroom drama in which Richard Gere plays a defense attorney who used to be a prosecutor (*sigh*) who is defending altar boy Edward Norton, accused of brutally murdering an archbishop. To add "spice" he is up against prosecutor Laura Linney, his ex-girlfriend (*double sigh*) who utters lines like "It was a one night stand Marty, it just lasted six months." (*triple sigh/cringe*). Yes, all the cliches are in effect; every courtroom scene is stuffed with the usual "You are in contempt!"/"I will not have grandstanding in my courtroom!"/"Strike the witness' testimony from the record!" etc etc etc and the so-called twist is blindingly obvious the moment Ed stammers out his first line. I know Norton is a good actor, but it's hard to tell under all that stuttering, local yokel accent and occasional outbursts of shouting and the whole thing just gave me a serious case of deja vu. Adequately executed but there's nothing here you won't have seen at least a dozen times before.
