Film Review: Primer (2004) B

Date Viewed: 6/21/06
Venue: DVD

Primer is best 5,000 dollar movie you’ll ever see. Indie newcomer (well, newcomer in 2004, I’m a little late seeing this) Shane Carruth writes, directs, and stars in the micro-budget sci-fi time travel thriller that is a slick piece of entertainment that will keep you guessing at every turn.

Two young engineers accidentally invent a time machine. Five grand won’t cover a flying DeLorean, but Primer gives us an almost fly-on-the-wall account of the machine’s creation. Scientific knowledge aside, the dialog is so authentically engineer I buy those guys actually build the darn thing. Of course the duo test it out and begin using it modestly for their own means, using future knowledge to buy rising stocks a day or two in the past. Things become more convoluted when the pair is forced to decide to use the machine to save a life.

From there, Primer becomes a tangle of timelines, possibilities, doppelgangers, and deception. There’s some very deft writing and editing going on here, and I must warn this is not a film you’ll be able to completely figure out on first viewing, it requires your full and complete attention.

I’ve always had a soft spot for time travel stories, warts, paradoxes, and all. But it’s so refreshing to see a time travel film that doesn’t treat it as a gimmick and has the cajones to tackle all sorts of paradoxical manifestations without dumbing things down for the audience.