The real-deal dialogue as well as the tight, grainy shots make you feel like you're eavesdropping on a big secret. And it adds a haunting quality viewers will find impossible to shake.
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10/22/04
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Primer (2004)
72
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:113
Fresh:81
Rotten:32
Average Rating:6.5/10
Consensus: Dense, obtuse, but stimulating, Primer is a film for viewers ready for a cerebral challenge.
Theatrical Release:Oct 8, 2004 Limited
Box Office: $392,420
Synopsis: Former engineer Shane Carruth announces himself as a force to watch with PRIMER, his first film. Carruth wrote, directed, edited, produced, photographed, scored, and stars in the film, which won... [More]
Starring: Shane Carruth, David Sullivan, Anand Upadbyaya, Casey Gooden
Director: Shane Carruth
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Reviews for Primer
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10/22/04
Once you move beyond the film's rigorous braininess and authentic feel, you stumble into a thicket of overlapping dialogue, jump cuts and an unwillingness on the part of Carruth to at least leave a trail of bread crumbs behind him.
10/22/04
A back-to-basics indie upstart that gets the job done well.
10/21/04
A dense and dazzling science-fiction mind-bender unassumingly dressed up in a tech geek's short-sleeved oxford shirt, pocket protector and safety goggles.
10/21/04
Love it or hate it, you won't be able to leave it alone.
10/19/04
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10/19/04
The first thing Shane Carruth should have done as a director was fire himself as an actor, because I think he gives a terrible performance.
10/19/04
Top CriticIt's dense, and in a way that doesn't begin to reward the effort required to untie it.
10/15/04
Top CriticIntriguing but flawed.
10/15/04
Every frame of the way, it's eminently clear that Primer is the work of an engineer, not a film- maker.
10/15/04
By turns inventive, confounding and obtuse, it doesn't always work, but it challenges, nonetheless.
10/15/04
This movie manages to be effective about a topic as complex and difficult to render as time travel.
10/15/04
What's impressive -- aside from the fact that Carruth got the thing made in the first place -- is that the movie's tone skates right between coherence and an appreciation for endless, even infinite possibilities.
10/15/04
Carruth's worthy entry in the Blair Witch Project/Pi sweepstakes is inordinately clever in making the most of modest resources.
10/15/04
This sci-fi brain-bender isn't for most, but it's the most rewardingly rewatchable movie since Memento.
10/14/04
Writer-director Shane Carruth makes a low-tech, low-budget entry into a staple of science fiction and manages to make it feel like a genre you've never been to before.
10/14/04
Top CriticThe movie isn't much more than a mash-up of Frankenstein and In the Company of Men.
10/14/04
A brilliant little indie thriller.
10/14/04
Carruth has made a fascinating first film and a solid foundation for things to come.
10/14/04
Latest News for Primer
March 16, 2005:
Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival 2005
A 70-mm French comedy by Jacques Tati will open my 7th annual Overlooked Film Festival this April, and a Bollywood musical starring "the most beautiful woman in the... More...
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