Primer - Or a film that was missed by most, but shouldn't have been

Alright, first thing I want to point out about this film is it is not what you'd expect from the trailer, the beginning of it, or what most people will tell you about it. It is, for the most part, a pretty realistic look at the time paradox that time travel can create. A lot, and I do mean A LOT, of people didn't see this one. I have no idea why though. Maybe it was because it has zero stars in it, maybe its because no one was attached to it producing, writing, or directing that was a name. Maybe it was just that it was marketed poorly, or not at all. The last one is probably why really. I had a chance to see this at the Philadelphia Film Festival one year, but I completely missed it so I could go on a different night (those tickets are kind of expensive). So I didn't see it until about a year, maybe a year and a half later thanks to good old Netflix. I don't remember if it was me, or my friend Matt who got it from Netflix when it was suggested to go on our queue. Either way, we watched it together. We were both blown away by it. Now I will stop talking about how much I love this movie and how underrated it is and get on with the review.

Alright, first things first, the camera. Look, this movie was made on a tiny budget, and by guys who hadn't ever made a big film before. The camera is a tiny bit shakier than maybe it should be, and it is definitely obviously a cheap camera being used. So the film doesn't look very good at all. This needs to be known to be able to enjoy the movie beforehand, so that way you won't be thrown off by it. The sound is decent, and the whole movie has a voice over almost the entire way through. The voice over never really distracts from the movie, and seems to only add to it, it also ends up playing a large part to why the films story is so excellent.

The story is the real star here. The actors are alright, none of them are going to be Oscar conetenders any time soon or anything, but they are all pretty decent for an indie film. The story is what brings you in though. It is about 4 friends initially who are working on projects to try and invent something to make some money. Honestly, what they are working on in the beginning or whether or not they are ever successful on that endeavor doesn't matter in the least. In fact, that there are 4 friends in the beginning doesn't even matter. Two of them go the way of Richie Cunninham's brother eventually, and are just gone, and kind of forgotten. So the two main friends inadvertantly create what is sort of a time machine. The way the machine works, and this is explained better than I can in the movie, is that you go into sort of a stasis within it and end up being backwards in time, but only having experienced what seems like moments to you or your body. So the two friends do what most of us would with something like this, they decide to find a way to make money. They play the stock market, in small doses, just enough to make some real money for themselves, but not enough that it looks suspicious or could cause a butterfly effect sort of thing. This works great at first, but we all know that something bigger is coming. What it is, or how it goes, I'm not going to tell you. All I am going to do is say, see the movie. You will enjoy it, I promise you.

So if you enjoy time travel movies, character pieces, or films that just are indie and a bit off the beaten path, watch Primer. It really is an extremely interesting, and even fun movie. It isn't a popcorn flick, but it is a thinking mans movie, and won't disappoint someone who goes into it expecting a lot more substance than style.