Primal Fear: Streaming on Netflix

Content Warning – sexual abuse and murder

Image credit: Edward Norton (left) and Richard Gere (right) in Primal Fear from Amazon Prime

An eclectic and gripping 90’s classic. This film showcases Richard Gere as the hot-shot attorney seeking pro-bono stardom by winning the impossible case of the year. Based on a novel by William Diehl, this is a story of a lawyer who is bound to the law’s maxim of ‘innocent until proven guilty’. 

A young teenager named Aaron Stampler (played by Edward Norton) is arrested over the violent murder of the archbishop of Chicago. Throughout the entire film we see more and more evidence giving motive for the boy’s action, but Martin Vail (the attorney) can’t bring himself to believe that the damaged Kentucky kid did it. 

This film has one of the biggest twists of the 90’s and features astounding performances from several familiar (and young) faces of Hollywood today. For these two reasons alone it is worth a watch.