Gold When it Comes to Thrillers. Review on Primal Fear Movie

"If you want justice, go to a whorehouse. If you wanna get fuc*ed, go to court."

It would seem, after watching Primal Fear, that Martin Vail is.

Played by Richard Gere, Vail is a publicity-seeking, egotistical defense attorney who volunteers for each high-profile, sensational homicides regardless of what the truth may be - "because each defendant has the right to have the best defense" says Vail. Fair enough.

Vail believes in "right to a fair trial, " and so do the general public in Chicago including media. Or, else the case would be all but over before the characters settle the scores eventually.

The accused is a 19-year old altar boy "Aaron Stampler" played by Edward Norton, who works with the Archbishop Rushman. The movie opens with Rushman getting stabbed to death, the cops catching Stampler boxed in and the events following the murder getting telecast.

The whole of Chicago, including Vail's ex Janet Venable, believes Aaron is guilty of stabbing Rushman to death but not Vail. Janet played by Laura Linney is the prosecutor in the Aaron Stampler trial, the Archbishop homicide.

The attorney has immense political influence too in Chicago - an ex-cop assists him in homicides. Plus, there is a scene early on indicative of that - we see everyone in the Roman Catholic community and the boys' choir respecting Vail.

The two colleagues shares a fiesty relationship, with Janet accusing Vail to be what he is and Vail staying quiet. Vail may be greedy for an attorney, but he knows how to deal with the clients.

In an early scene in Primal Fear, we see Vail looking into the telecast video tapes for some sort of inkling to Stampler's personality - from up close there seems to be a guilty sign around his neck and surely Vail doubts that.

Or, is there any reason should he not know intend?

Needless to say, Primal Fear instills the worst kind of Fear in viewers the fear of the unknown. I was spending my time watching this Gregory Hoblit movie trying to figure out the repercussions of an attorney than a victim and that is rare quite unlike standard whodunits. The matter of whodunit would seem relatively irrelevant to the revelations in Primal Fear.

To quote Neo Frued - "It's fear, the most primal human emotion, that gives gold its value."