Release Date: 4/5/1996
Weeks at Number One: 3
Thanks for reading! This is my ongoing series where I track the evolution of American culture in my life by reviewing every number one film at the weekend box office since I was born in chronological order. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading my introduction post here, and be sure to like and share the review if you enjoyed it!
Last week while reviewing The Birdcage, I was able to double back and expand a discussion on gay rights in the ‘90s that I had originally brought up in my first ever column. In a nice bit of coincidental mirroring, this week I get to do the same thing for a topic I brought up in my second review on Se7en: the O.J. trial.
Arguably the last major cultural event to occur before I was born, the murder trial of football star and actor O.J. Simpson has informed much of American culture in the decades since the Not Guilty verdict was announced. The highly publicized murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman was brutal in its violence, and that was only the start of the circus. After murder charges were filed against the retired athlete, 95 million Americans watched live as O.J., a truly beloved pop culture figure, threatened to kill himself in the back of a slow moving white Bronco. I try to imagine someone like Travis Kelce in that position right now and I just can’t even picture it.
The media coverage was constant. Americans couldn’t turn away from the salacious issues of sex, violence, race, antisemitism, and misogyny raised by the trial and the reporting of it. The lawyers and ancillary figures in and around the courtroom became celebrities in their own right. The media circus that obsessed over the O.J. Trial gave birth to the modern incarnation of our celebrity-crazed reality TV culture, most directly with its ties to the Kardashian media empire. The outcome of the trial, announced during the strong run that Se7en had on top of the box office, has remained controversial to this day, even after the recent death of the defendant.
By Spring of 1996, the American public had been inundated with news about the O.J. case for over two years. Your average moviegoer was primed for dramatic trials about violent crimes with charismatic figures at their center. Legal thrillers had found success before the O.J. trial of course; Philadelphia had been a massive hit a year before the murders occurred, and 12 Angry Men [4/5] and To Kill A Mockingbird [4.5/5] are both bonafide classic trial movies from the mid-20th century.
But the mid ‘90s had a general public ready to be in the courtroom and learn some outrageous details about scandalous murder. Why? Maybe because the grisly details helped them to tap into a sort of primal fear.
Based on a William Diehl novel of the same name from 19931, Primal Fear is a 1996 legal thriller starring Richard Gere as a hotshot defense lawyer who, as a way to stay in the limelight, agrees to take the seemingly hopeless case of a 19-year-old altar boy (Edward Norton) accused of murdering a popular Archbishop in Chicago. The story twists and turns through different revelations brought to light both in dark interrogation rooms and the bright sun of the court. Despite three weeks at the top of the box office, Primal Fear feels like it goes under the radar these days compared to other popular movies of the time. If you’ve heard of this movie at all, though, odds are it’s because of its foundational role in the career of one of our finest living actors.
Edward Norton was 25 when he made Primal Fear, and he was the only thing anyone could talk about coming out of the movie. Here was a true unknown whose audition tape for the film sent such shockwaves throughout Hollywood that it got him cast in two other movies in addition to the one he was trying out for. It would be one thing if Norton had had a steady career as a working actor on TV in the years before Primal Fear, but his acting journey is a bit odder than you may think.
Ed Norton realized he wanted to be an actor as a child by watching plays, not movies or television. The Maryland native graduated from Yale with a degree in history in 1990, and after a brief spell living in Japan, Norton moved to New York and began the grind of trying to make it in the world of off-off Broadway theater. Granted, he was aided in this by some family money (his grandfather had founded the Enterprise Foundation, a multi-billion dollar nonprofit), but the young Norton’s interest in acting was no rich boy’s dalliance with the arts.
After a few years of some success acting and networking in the New York theater scene, Norton caught wind of a break. Leonardo Dicaprio had just dropped out of an adaptation of the book Primal Fear, and the studio was accepting open auditions for young men around the country in an effort to replace him. Over 2100 actors tried out for the role, but only one of them was Edward Norton, whose audition tape brought so much to the role that it was passed on to Miloš Forman and Woody Allen. Both legendary directors ended up casting Norton in their upcoming movies, Forman’s The People Vs. Larry Flynt and Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You.
Imagine that. Imagine being so good at what you do that during a job interview you line up three jobs at once because people are just so impressed with your work. That audition tape has never publicly surfaced, but according to reports, it showcases Norton totally making the Primal Fear character Aaron Stampler his own. He gave the murder defendant a stutter, and spoke in such a convincing Kentucky accent that the movie’s director, Gregory Hoblit, was expecting a country bumpkin to show up to their first meeting, not a well-spoken Yale graduate from Columbia, Maryland.
This version of the character from Norton’s audition is what ended up in Primal Fear, but there’s also more to the performance that I can’t really talk about. I won’t spoil the big twists that occur halfway and near the end of this movie, but they totally change what this movie is even about in fascinating ways. The quality of Norton’s performance never wavers through these shifts, though.
It’s an acting job that’s more visceral and real-feeling than anything else I’ve seen from this time period, which is saying something considering the movies I’ve reviewed. Norton was entirely focused on the craft of acting at this point of his career, actively shunning the fame and celebrity he earned after Primal Fear got big. He was fully in it for the art. It’s a more locked in performance than almost anything else I’ve seen in this entire column.
Everyone on set must have realized that Edward Norton was the future. It would have been very easy for the actual star of the movie to politic for a different, worse actor to be cast, someone who wouldn’t steal the spotlight so much. But Richard Gere didn’t do that.
Gere had been a big name actor for about 15 years by the time Primal Fear was released. American Gigolo, An Officer and a Gentleman, Pretty Woman, and more all built the talented silver fox a reputation as a big draw for sexy, romantic features. Gere taking the role of a image-obsessed defense lawyer focused more on his job than romance was already a risk, and now here’s this young gun who’s about to make a name for himself playing across from him.
To his credit, Richard Gere does great work as protagonist Martin Vail in Primal Fear. The actor has a bit of natural smarm to him, so to have him play a character that only offers his pro bono services to a broke murder suspect to garner all the publicity is apt casting. As charming as this early version of the character is though, his arc from beginning to climax is solidly constructed and performed. Gere as Vail evolves his slimy charisma at the start of the movie to some truly sympathetic, quality lawyering by the end.
In every scene without Norton, Gere turns on the charm and carries the story along single handedly. When he’s paired up with the younger actor, the more established star is a great dance partner. The pair nail the evolving lawyer-client relationship between Vail and Stampler, each man changing and being changed by the other in such a natural way that you barely notice it until they’re wholly different people by the rolling of credits.
The core of Primal Fear is basically everything I could want in a legal drama. The courtroom is the stage for dramatic interrogations on the witness stand, surprise pieces of evidence, and intense objections. Outside the courtroom, backroom deals are cut, the nature of justice and truth are debated in smoky bars, and psychiatric observations reveal hidden truths. Though the actual legality of the court proceedings are questionable to say the least2, it works as dramatic storytelling and kept me engaged to the shocking end.
The Stampler trial in Primal Fear isn’t exactly 1 to 1 with O.J.’s, but I think it’s interesting for many of the same reasons. It starts with a bloody murder and a shocking police chase on live TV before the highly publicized trial brings up scintillating secrets the public can’t look away from. The lawyers at the center of the case become subjects of the nightly news, as key to the narrative of the murder as suspected perpetrator and victim. As the trial unfolds, it forces uncomfortable conversations about abuse of power from those we thought we could trust.
People didn’t go see Primal Fear to be reminded of the O.J. trial, but a morbid familiarity with that kind of case probably helped sell quite a few tickets.
O.J. wasn’t the only piece of reality on my mind while watching this trial. It’s fascinating to see the story of a fictional trial centered around the Catholic Church at this point in history. Primal Fear was released 6 years before the Boston Globe Spotlight Investigation that brought mass attention to systemic cover ups of sexual abuse by the church. Nowadays, if a story were to start with the murder of a powerful Archbishop in his home, the immediate assumption would be that horrible abuse was involved. So while it was hard to be shocked by it when that eventually did come to light over the course of the trial in Primal Fear, I have to chalk that up more to a sad reframing of context, not any fault of the film itself.
[Spotlight, the 2015 movie about that Globe investigation, never topped the box office, but it’s absolutely fantastic. 4.5/5]
If Primal Fear was just a great court drama with a few killer performances at the heart of it, I’d be falling over myself recommending it to you. Unfortunately, the movie carries a few strikes against its overall quality.
The script, penned by television scribes Steve Shagan and Ann Biderman, is filled with extraneous threads and characters that detract from the focus of the main story. I understand the need for red herrings in a mystery, but the movie doesn’t even linger on subplots like the corruption of Chicago city planning or a mysterious second altar boy enough to really get me thinking they’re key to solving the murder. It’s only enough time to make me think the screenwriters needed to hit a page quota, and the movie ends up feeling long in the tooth by the end as a result.
Similarly, the romance subplot between Gere and Laura Linney, playing the prosecutor trying to convict his client of murder, lacks any real stakes. The characters had already had a failed months-long fling before the events of the movie, and their dynamic isn’t so charming that I’m eager to see them try again. Linney is great in the role as the frustrated sword of the district attorney, and the professional dynamic between her and Gere is good enough as is. Their romance starts nowhere, goes nowhere, and adds nothing.
Primal Fear wants us to take it as neo-noir, a dark twist on the crime mysteries of the mid 20th century, but it lacks the panache in its presentation to sell me on that vision. Unlike genre contemporaries Se7en, Fargo [4.5/5], or L.A. Confidential [3.5/5], this movie lacks striking imagery, interesting blocking, or even compelling lighting. Hoblit is an award winning television director for his work on shows like Hill Street Blues, but so much of Primal Fear just looks a bit bright and flat. As a result of the boring visuals, the big moments of the film have more difficulty eliciting the excitement than they should. Thankfully, the performances do a good job of covering for the so-so directing.
The movie has very little score or soundtrack, meaning scenes like the court climax lack that extra important bit of tension that a great piece of music can give. The non-court scenes are affected by this choice too; despite positioning itself as intrinsically tied to the bustling metropolis of Chicago, the version of the city in Primal Fear feels lifeless and empty, due in large part to all crowd scenes being eerily silent of background music or chatter. The Second City, so vital to the film’s plot, barely feels like a small town because of it.
Despite these flaws in its writing and presentation, I still recommend Primal Fear. It’s a clever thriller that changes the trajectory of its story wildly at key points, bolstered by some killer performances at its center by Norton and Gere. Its legacy as the brilliant younger actor’s origin story might make you think there’s nothing else there to chew on, but the whole movie is a solidly constructed, entertaining package that smartly trusts its audience to be able to keep up with the evolving shape of its narrative. If you like a slightly darker yet still entertaining ‘90s thriller, Primal Fear scratches that itch well, if a bit basically at times.
Critics at the time were generally into Primal Fear (the movie currently holds a 78% on Rotten Tomatoes), though like I said up top, basically the only thing anyone wanted to talk about after seeing it was this new kid on the block Edward Norton. That includes the other actors; in researching this column, I found interviews with Gere, Linney, and Hoblit where they fell over themselves talking about how great it was to work with the new guy. Norton himself, though, eschewed all press and media for his breakout role. In his first (and I think only) interview about the movie, conducted by Drew Barrymore and published in Interview magazine, the method actor outlined his separation from fame:
I think that the more people know about you, the more they have to work to believe you when you’re in a role.
Over the course of the next year, Norton was nominated for eighteen different Best Supporting Actor awards from seemingly every critical body under the sun. He won half of them, including the Golden Globe. Though nominated for the Academy Award, he lost to Cuba Gooding Jr.’s performance in Jerry Maguire, a movie I haven’t seen yet but will watch soon for this column.
Though Primal Fear stayed atop the weekend box office for 3 consecutive weekends, it was never pulling in ticket money like some of the hits we’ll be covering soon. Instead, it succeeded by being a successful midsized fish in a small pond. Still, a respectable $56 million domestic intake after 4 months in theaters was nearly doubled by the foreign market, which means that this $30 million adult thriller made a pretty tidy profit, all things considered. We’re no longer in an era where that can happen very much; if Primal Fear came out today I imagine it would be directly released on Netflix or Peacock.
I don’t think it’s fair to call Primal Fear a hidden gem. It holds an important place in the career of a still-relevant actor, and was a solid hit in its own time. But despite its quality, I was basically unaware of its existence for years in the same way I was for more mediocre movies like Up Close & Personal and Broken Arrow. This thriller is far more engaging than those films, and should be remembered more widely. If you see Primal Fear available on streaming you should absolutely check it out, especially if you’ve any fondness for courtroom dramas at all, whether real or fictional.
In addition to kickstarting Edward Norton’s career, Primal Fear serves another important purpose. I’m ready to call it: The Birdcage was the exception, this one’s the rule. Primal Fear has renewed my energy for the column by acting as proof that we are out of the dump months of 1996. Ladies and gentlemen, as we approach the first summer blockbuster season covered by “A Life In Film,” I’m happy to report that movies are finally good again.
Rating: 4/5
Next Week: There will be no edition of the column next week, as I’ll be traveling abroad! Look forward to a small update post that will go out at the usual time though for a hint of the next movie that is being reviewed…
Spoiler for how much I enjoyed the film, but I grabbed a copy of the source material from the library when I saw it was the first in a trilogy. I’m not too far in yet, but I like it!
Popular YouTuber/Lawyer LegalEagle has a very fun video breaking down the actual law practiced in Primal Fear that I recommend and have linked here, though I will warn that it spoils the whole movie