Primal Fear(1996) takes great care at first to paint its protagonist Martin Vale(Richard Gere) as an arrogant, high-profile ambulance chaser--largely through the rather obvious narrative device of having him be interviewed for a magazine cover-story.
Nevertheless director Gregory Hoblit ("NYPD Blue"(TV), Frequency(2000)) teases out a sheister's midnight musings--telegraphing that Vale is missing something--when he has the lawyer tell THE lawyer-joke ALL WRONG during the fade-in: the correct punchline to "What's the difference between a lawyer and a whore?", is "-The whore stops scr**ing you after you're dead".
This is Vale's emotional journey: how he became a sheister, whom he left behind, and whether, if we scratch his surface, he still has an ethical heart beating beneath his cocky-and-selfish exterior. Gere does his usual good job, delivering a solid performance elevated by terrific chemistry with his leading lady, even providing the movie with a stunning ending--but Primal Fear has become Edward Norton's star-maker, and an instant classic for it.
It's now the stuff of Hollywood legend how Norton was so impressive during his reading for the part of Aaron/Roy Stampler, that Tinseltown fell all over itself offering the unknown its meatiest parts even before Fear was "in the can". He's had a golden career since, being allowed to direct his 6th film (Keeping the Faith(2000)); and his fast rise in Hollywood has seemingly impelled Ed in private to question if this is all there is.
But Norton doesn't carry the acting load all by himself--that's spread out evenly among the top-notch cast assembled by Deborah Aquila and Jane Shannon. Laura Linney's edgy and "pi$$ed-off-as-hell" lone female lawyer certainly deflects much of Norton's glory.
Linney(Absolute Power(1997), Kinsey(2005), Jindabyne(2006)) for my money steals the movie, amply evidencing her Julliard training. Her Janet Venables is Vale's cynical nicotine-sucking ex-protégé, still plugging away at the State Attorney's Office long after he quit. Vale resents her lack of equal conviction, yet pines for her, having previously abandoned their romance. Unfortunately--or fortunately--she is still smarting from his arrogant self-serving attitude, and now gleefully baits him at every opportunity.
She has plenty, since they're opposing counsel in the Stampler case, and Linney delivers a wonderful 'bit' as she angrily apes Stampler to Vale: "I gotta admit, that FACE is GREAT--you prepping him to take the stand? That stutter is p-p-p-p-priceless"!
As noted, there are many familiar faces, mostly from TV: powerhouse Andre Braugher ("Homicide--Life on the Street"); soft-spoken Joe Spano ("Hill Street Blues"); prototypically-Irish-yet-deceptively-broiling John Mahoney ("Frasier"); sublimely blasé Alfre Woodard ("St Elsewhere"); and even pixyishly competent Maura Tierney (Liar Liar(1997)).
As in all the best courtroom-dramas, Fear is both socio-political and character-driven. It's packed to the brim with backstory for every character, thanks to its previous incarnation as a William Diehl novel. The gutsy Ann Biderman/Steve Shagan screenplay, combined with Hoblit's intelligent direction, allows the human relationships to be complex and to have lots of history, often with each other.
At just over 2hrs, Fear is a riveting education in the routine abduction of our legal system by the rich and powerful. They usually turn out to be the city fathers. John Shaughnessy(Mahoney), the State Attorney, knows he is the pivot of considerable financial skullduggery amidst the intimate secrets of all the usual players when he claims that "this city doesn't burn because I won't permit it".
This subplot recalls the notion of "menschkeit" from Ken Lipper's similarly-intentioned City Hall(1996).
The sudden, surprising fate of Vale's other client Joey Pinero (Steven Bauer, aka the skinny "gerbil" from Running Scared(1986), Det.Sigliano) serves as silent exposition to Shaughnessy's m.o.: it's a clue as to why Vale quit Shaughnessy's office in the first place.
Such lightning-bolts do make Miss Venables' determination to stay actually hard to comprehend, but her resultant tensile-steel-composure among men speaks volumes. Her tough-minded presence in "the enemy camp" offers Vale one last opportunity not to underestimate her. When he doesn't, it's the best compliment he could've paid her, relieving much of his earlier guilt.
We discover Shaughnessy's surprising personal stake in the Stampler case way late into the last quarter, as Vale FINALLY introduces it in court. The overdue explanation seems somewhat annoying, since the financial skullduggery represents a powerful motive for all those not on trial.
Stampler's backstory, too, must be as interesting as his awesome portrayal by Norton. His remark to Vale's psychiatrist (the surprisingly dull Frances McDormand (Fargo(2000)) that his father WAS not a nice man, is significant. He is making a distinction between the deaths of his father and mother, essentially "burying the lead".
There is one more clue about Stampler's feelings towards duplicitous people: his resentful flash of emotion upon being forced to admit that the archbishop's bending of altar-boy rules on Stampler's behalf was "nice of him". In hindsight, it's possible to guess at Stampler's tortured--and terrifying--inner world.
All this propels us towards the closing dilemma. We witness Vale's satisfaction at uncovering one onion-layer of truth as he finally exposes his former boss, but then lose his own righteous certainty once he realises that complete faith in innocence is also misplaced. This becomes the sheister's lament: "Why gamble with money when you can gamble with people's lives?!" Where do you put your faith when no-one is "clean"?
Credit must go to DoP Michael Chapman for Fear's profound epilogue: it depicts Gere's cuckolded lawyer trying to grasp his own humanity. Chapman visualises Vale's (suddenly) topsy-turvy-world with a tracking-overhead shot using a hothead mount, as Vale walks from the courtroom. The scene restores to a normal dolly shot as his cold stop--and bewilderment--jolts us into desperation, wondering if this hadn't just been Martin Vale's very LAST attempt at compassion.(10/10)
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