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Aug 9, 2021 · The scenes were filmed near 18th Street Station, a railway station near Museum Park Place. The police station shown in the film can be located at 943 West Maxwell Street. Martin’s office is tucked away in an affluent neighborhood at West Chicago Avenue and North Dearborn Street in the city. Aaron is kept in a correctional facility.
Primal Fear is a 1996 American legal mystery crime thriller film directed by Gregory Hoblit, based on the 1993 novel of the same name by William Diehl, written by Steve Shagan and Ann Biderman. It stars Richard Gere , Laura Linney , John Mahoney , Alfre Woodard , Frances McDormand and Edward Norton in his film debut.
Apr 28, 1995 · Park Plaza Hotel - 607 S. Park View Street, Los Angeles, California, USA. View Details. Are we missing. a location? Maybe you know a location we are currently missing, contribute by adding to our growing database. Add Location. Primal Fear was filmed in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
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is a 1996 American legal mystery thriller film directed by Gregory Hoblit, based on the 1993 novel of the same name by William Diehl, and written by Steve Shagan and Ann Biderman. It stars Richard Gere, Laura Linney, John Mahoney, Alfre Woodard, Frances McDormand, Andre Braugher, Maura Tierney, and Edward Norton in his film debut. The film follows a Chicago defense attorney who believes that his altar boy client is not guilty of murdering a Catholic archbishop.
The film was a box office success and received positive reviews, with Norton's performance earning critical praise. Norton won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
Martin Vail is an arrogant Chicago defense attorney, known for his undesirable but high-profile clients, including mob boss Joey Piñero. Fond of the spotlight, Vail is profiled for a magazine cover story, and tries to rekindle a casual relationship with his former colleague, prosecutor Janet Venable.
Beloved Archbishop Rushman is savagely killed in his bedroom and his body mutilated. Aaron Stampler, a 19-year-old altar boy from Kentucky, is caught fleeing the scene covered in blood and charged with murder. Vail offers to defend him pro bono, and the meek, stuttering Aaron claims he is innocent but is prone to amnesia. Vail believes Aaron, while the state's attorney, John Shaughnessy, assigns Venable to prosecute the case and pursue the death penalty.
At Aaron's apartment, Vail's investigator Tommy Goodman is attacked by another altar boy, Alex, who flees. Neuropsychologist Dr. Molly Arrington interviews Aaron for hours about his difficult childhood, his memory lapses, and his missing girlfriend Linda. With help from Piñero, Vail discovers that powerful civic leaders, including Shaughnessy, lost millions in real estate investments due to Rushman's decision not to develop church-owned land. In court, a message carved into Rushman's chest is linked to a passage from The Scarlet Letter, denouncing the archbishop as "two-faced".
Vail and Goodman track down Alex, who was searching for an incriminating VHS cassette. Stealing the tape from the archbishop's closet, Vail and his team discover footage of one of many encounters filmed by the archbishop forcing Aaron, Linda, and Alex to engage in sexual acts. Vail confronts Aaron, who suddenly becomes a violent sociopath without a stutter who identifies himself as "Roy". The aggressive Roy admits to killing the archbishop, but threatens Vail not to introduce the tape at trial, before becoming shy, passive Aaron again, with no recollection of his change in personality.
Dr. Arrington concludes that Aaron has dissociative identity disorder caused by years of abuse at the hands of his father and, later, Rushman. Conflicted, Vail knows that he could acquit his client via an insanity defense, but cannot change his strategy mid-trial. He delivers the evidence anonymously to Venable, forcing her to use the tape as proof of Aaron's motive, at the risk of tarnishing the archbishop and generating sympathy for Aaron. Shaughnessy commands her to destroy the evidence, but she refuses and introduces it in court.
Piñero is discovered murdered, and Vail surprises the court by calling Shaughnessy as a witness. Vail suggests Shaughnessy resented the archbishop for stopping the $60 million land development, and accuses him of concealing previous evidence of the archbishop's sexual predation, and for being complicit in Piñero's death. Judge Shoat intervenes, striking the line of questioning from the record and fining Vail for using the courtroom as a stage for his own vendettas.
•Richard Gere as defense attorney Martin Vail
•Edward Norton as defendant Aaron Stampler / Roy
•Laura Linney as prosecutor Janet Venable
•John Mahoney as state's attorney John Shaughnessy
•Alfre Woodard as Judge Miriam Shoat
•Frances McDormand as Dr Molly Arrington
The soundtrack includes the Portuguese fado song "Canção do Mar" sung by Dulce Pontes.
The film was released on VHS and LaserDisc on October 15, 1996.
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 77% based on 47 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Primal Fear is a straightforward, yet entertaining thriller elevated by a crackerjack performance from Edward Norton." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, lists the film with a weighted average score of 46/100 based on 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore awarded the film an average grade of B+ on an A+-to-F scale.
Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the film has a "good deal of surface charm" but "the story relies on an overload of tangential subplots to keep it looking busy." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded Primal Fear three and a half stars, writing that "the plot is as good as crime procedurals get, but the movie is really better than its plot because of the three-dimensional characters." Ebert described Gere's performance as one of the best in his career, praised Linney for rising above what might have been a stock character and applauded Norton for offering a "completely convincing" portrayal.
•Mental illness in films
•Trial movies
•Plot twist
•Deewangee (2002), a Hindi film influenced by Primal Fear.
1.Primal Fear.
2.Primal Fear.
3.King, Susan. "'Letterbox' Brings Wide Screen Home", Times Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, August 16, 1996, p. 96.
4.Primal Fear (1996).
5.Primal Fear Reviews.
6.PRIMAL FEAR (1996) B+. CinemaScore.
Apr 5, 1996 · Roger Ebert. April 5, 1996. 4 min read. Richard Gere and Edward Norton in "Primal Fear." Once it was cops who solved crimes. Then private eyes. In the Grisham era, it has been lawyers. “Primal Fear,” based on a novel by William Diehl, stars Richard Gere as a flamboyant Chicago defense attorney who chases defendants instead of ambulances and ...
Primal Fear: Directed by Gregory Hoblit. With Richard Gere, Laura Linney, John Mahoney, Alfre Woodard. The murder of a high and mighty archbishop leads to the involvement of Martin Vail, Chicago's best attorney.
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Defense attorney Martin Vail takes on jobs for money and prestige rather than any sense of the greater good. His latest case involves an altar boy, accused of brutally murdering the archbishop of ...
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