A Croc With No Teeth: A DVD Review of "Primeval"

In the war-torn country of Burundi, there is one of the world's most-prolific killer still at large and still at work. He is believed to be about sixty-years-old, weigh somewhere around a ton, and has a definite taste for human flesh. The locals have given him a name which is "Gustave." Gustave is a crocodile and he has reportedly killed and eaten somewhere around 300 people while the nation of Burundi has been slowly devolving into chaos and civil war.

A few years ago National Geographic paid a legendary croc hunter to try and capture Gustave. Despite all attempts and a huge metal cage, Gustave stubbornly refused to be caught. Gustave also has many scars across his head which is said to be bullet wounds from many people who have tried to kill him over the years. He has reported been bludgeoned and stabbed and he still survives, killing again and again. He has even been reported as recently as April of this year, knocking fishermen out of a small boat and killing several of them.

Of course animal experts disagree as to whether Gustave has really killed as many as 300. The exact number can never really be known. It could be that others are killed for other reasons, or by other crocs, and they get blamed on Gustave. What is known is that Gustave has killed a LOT of people, is VERY large and VERY old.

More than likely Gustave is an opportunist, like other animals who turn towards humans for their food. He may be too slow or old to catch other things and those flesh humans are so easy to catch. Given the bloodshed in the country and the amount of humans dumped into rivers because of it, he may have just gotten a taste for flesh. Whatever the reason, the civil war in Burundi has done more to help Gustave and his methods than hinder it.

It would seem that a movie based on the legend of Gustave would be a slam dunk. It could be a jungle version of "Jaws." Invent a reason for people to go down and try to hunt Gustave and watch the blood fly. Done right, and with modern CGI technology, it could be exciting, edge-of-your-seat stuff on par with the Spielberg vehicle that made him famous. The new DVD "Primeval" tries to do exactly that. It is a movie that had a short theatrical run back in January and comes out on DVD June 12. After viewing a special online screening of the film, I can now see why it did not succeed in the theaters.

The director, Michael Katleman, is a TV director. This was his first feature film. I point this out because the entire movie has a TV-movie-of-the-week feel about it. The movie stars Dominic Purcell of "Prison Break." Orlando Jones is also along for comic relief. Jurgen Pronchnow takes the role portrayed by Robert Shaw in "Jaws." Brooke Langdon shows up to give us something pretty to look at. Gustave is entirely created through computers.

If it weren't for the gore, violence and swearing, this is a movie made for television. It has neither the budget, pacing or writing sensibilities of a major motion picture release meant to be see on a big screen. As such, you would think I would be recommending you run out and buy the DVD. However, I cannot do that. This is a movie that, if you happen to catch it on cable, late at night, migth be entertaining, but the movie suffers from a major flaw.

The cool thing about "Jaws" was that the movie excised much of the fat that was in the book. While I enjoyed the novel "Jaws" very much, there were a lot more story lines involved that were discarded in the movie. A plot about the mayor needing to keep the beaches open due to ties with the mob, for instance. The book has an entire sub-plot about Chief Brody's unhappy wife having a torrid sexual tryst with the young Matt Hooper.

Spielberg and crew realized that the plot was really about man versus nature. The excitement was to make the shark the villain and not cloud the waters, pardon the pun, with excess plots that would make you doubt the motivations of the heroes. Thus, the movie was just man versus shark, especially during the final act when the three heroes are out on the boat by themselves facing off against the Great White.

Well, in "Primeval" the director has decided to make a political statement and added elements that are unnecessary. Maybe due to budgetary problems with creating the CGI croc, there is an entire sub-plot about a warlord working in the area where Purcell's film crew is supposed to be filming an attempt to capture Gustave. So, we end up with ruthless footage of men lopping the heads off of villagers. We have warlords shooting at the heroes. We have an entire statement about how no one cares about the plight of Africans in Burundi back in the states. All of this serves to completely slow down any momentum that might have been built up with the scenes of the crew versus Gustave.

As such, the movie meanders. The pacing gets thrown off. While you wait for the next exciting shot of the croc attacking our heroes, or taking down another victim, you end up sitting through one act of brutality upon another inflicted by humans upon their fellow humans. It's like a powerful political thriller smashed head on into a man versus nature flick. Combining the two dilutes the power and plots of both, leaving a watered-down movie that does not have nearly as many thrills as it aspires to.

There may be a very good movie about the brutality of the war that took place, and may still be taking place, in Burundi. "Hotel Rwanda" dealt with some of the same themes. However, you will notice that in "Hotel Rwanda" the filmmakers did not add a killer croc to the plot.

At the same time, the story of Gustave, is already exciting. The filmmakers could have simply focused on the film crew traveling down the rivers and trying to capture the killer croc. That is an exciting plot in and of itself and it needs no additional help with side plots about warlords.

In "Jaws" the shark was the villain. By having it kill dogs and kids, you couldn't help but root for the heroes to ultimately kill this eating machine. In "Primeval" the humans are so much worse than the crocodile that you couldn't help but root for the croc to show up and eat the bad guys with the guns. This does, in fact, happen, a few times, throughout the movie. How can you get on the edge of your seat about Gustave when you're rooting for him?

The movie even tried to be sneaky with its advertising by implying that this was a movie about a real serial killer. In short, it's a movie full of deceptions. That would be fine if just one of them paid off the way you hope. Sadly, this does not happen. Both the people of Burundi and Gustave, deserve a better film.