John’s Movie Musings

I enjoy reading those random top 10 movie lists you find all over the internet.  They are a great place to mine hidden movie gems.  I still need to write the review, but I discovered The Wicker Man on the Top 10 Scenes of Brutal Violence Guaranteed to Make You Laugh.  There’s a list that commands a viewing of every movie on it, am I right?

I discovered Primal Fear on the Top 10 Best Endings or something like that.  The list had the usual suspects like The Sixth Sense and, um, The Usual Suspects, but there in the #2 spot sat Primal Fear, a movie I’d never heard of.  Into the Netflix queue it went.

Primal Fear came out in ’96 and happens to be Edward Norton’s first movie.  Laura Linney also has a large part and she had only done Congo before this.  Today, that’s a pretty impressive cast, but back then it was just Richard Gere with a pair of nobodies.  Nonetheless, the acting is outstanding.  That’s a good thing since there’s no way this movie would have worked without it.

Obviously with a movie prized for its ending, I’m not going to say a word about it.  I was expecting a “great ending” so I called most of it before it happened, but that didn’t diminish my enjoyment. If you’re in the mood for a good suspense thriller, or just want to see a young Ed Norton, or Richard Gere looking like he always has for the past 30 years, then give this a go.

Grade: B+