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Such a frustrating disappointment

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I wrote this movie, Adams had a bad out line based on his experience as a campaign publicist to a guy who ran and lost for Governor- Primary motive was a total rewrite of Dan Adams box of garbage story he brought to my home one day. Dan had been my publicist and made a small indie film that flopped the year before that I was an assoc producer on. The title he had sucked. i chose, " Primary Motive". The title should always focus the piece. Anyway. I'd like to thank the two people who reviewed this movie and grasped the fact that Carl Rove took the plot for the Dan Rather debacle right off of my pages. I called MSNBC back then and said, " hey, thats my movie, they copied".. The main reason the movie failed( other than Dan's mediocre directing talents, cinematography failures, and horrible sound recording and mix) was because Dan failed to shoot the pivotal scene that brings the audience into the Lie and sets up the whole story question for the film: Here is the missing scene: Poulos is at the car factory end of 1st act, he addresses the workers and tells them his father worked the same line and missed his graduation from Harvard, that he'd worked to put him through, cause he died that morning on the assembly line... the workers are blown away and start to see Poulos in a better light, a son of a blue collar worker. as Poulos and his entourage leave the factory, shaking hands, his chief aide says to him, " I thought your father lived in Boca?" Poulos says, " He does" and continues shaking hands. OK, we now just found out poulos is a liar, how can he not be found out and dr5ummed out of the race for Govenor by his lie? Thats the story question I wanted the audience to ask , " hey, thats an easy lie to expose? Ya, so what? Politics is about lies, soft warm, cuddly lies. How could Poulos stay in the race, how could his aides work for him? he's a sociopath. And the 2nd act would have shown just how Poulos and great liars thinks steps ahead...the press is supposed to be the exposer of lies, the angel uncovering untruths, so poulos discredits the press, cleverly, if I do say so myself. I liked that devious twist I wrote. Karl Rove must have liked it too. He saw just how it worked. and they did it to Dan rather five years after I wrote it. So, if Dan had the courage to film that scene as written or if he had the courage to stand up to the producer who said " I don't get it"," we don';t need it", the power of that story question could have driven the 2nd and 3rd acts powerfully. It was the first plot point and the basis for the underlying story question: why watch the rest of the movie, the tension was taken out of the story by removing the story question. The narrative fell flat. I loved sally in this, Jen Young's did a nice job with her" lay me down to sleep" scene( john savage asked me to write a scene for his daughter and I did- she got medicine woman on TV for that scene on her reel) Richard Jordan called me from Luxemburg to tell me they were not shooting his poulos scene admitting the lie to his aides. I told him it was critical. he agreed. but said Dan was incompetent and the rest of the crew just wanted to do the best they could with a producer who formerly produced Porkys 1 n 2 and a shitty cinematographer and rotten dailies. Considering the director and the producer. producing a 6 for primary motive is a salute to the cast and what little dramatic power was left in the story narrative. If they had left the scene in, the story would have at least possibly risen above its limitation of looks and sound. maybe. It still reads well years later, in its original story. And I guess the real award is the fact that Karl Rove ripped the plot twist off. I bet Karl knew and appreciated who Savonarola was. (Its in the story)

Just don't take it too seriously. I saw the film because I'm a fan of Richard Jordan, and he doesn't disappoint here - Jeffrey Pelt (The Hunt for Red October - "a cheat and a liar") with a nasty inferiority complex and absolutely no problem with having no ethics at all. Judd Nelson's character is naive in spots, calculating in spots, but ultimately the business is too cynical for him - Nelson pulls it off fine. Frank Converse is delightfully boring as the "good guy" candidate with no personality, but Justine Bateman is in over her head and drags this film down to a 6. Plot's a bit predictable here and there, but fascinatingly, it manages to foresee by about 12 years the Dan Rather fiasco of 2004, with a reporter who relies on a document that turns out to be a forgery, thereby blowing his credibility all out of the water and boosting the opposing candidate's campaign. Rather should have watched this movie.

WABC has been showing a lot of these Castle/Hill Productions lately, and most of them have been good flicks. This one, about a young man getting a job on the Primary campaign of a candidate for Governor of Mass., was very well done.Good acting, directing, music, writing, and a good story.Since only one person has bothered to review this film, and not given it a very good review, I'd like to point out the similarities between this movie and Bush's 2004 campaign. I don't think it would be going out very far on a limb to conjecture that perhaps Karl Rove saw this flick and got the idea for the Dan Rather debacle from this film.In the film, the opponent of the candidate the young fellow works for, plants a phony story and source (like the Bush story and source(s)about him not attending Air Force duties), and the story is discredited publicly, indirectly incriminating the other Party, like Kerry was similarly discredited.The election falls apart for the fellow's candidate, like Kerry's did, and the other guy wins.Sure it's not a new story (phony politicians), but in America's darkest time period (the Bush Presidency), it's one worth hearing again and again.

Regular politics, maybe, ordinary film, yes. Acting: Judd Nelson fresh from "Off the Hip" made the mistake of another law-type film and while not a complete failure, can't recoup the original taste of hungry young man in search of Truth, Justice and the 'American Way'; Justine Bateman, while perfectly cast in 'Family Ties', can't justify any acting ability since. The rest were ok and the supposed reasons to watch after the first 'teaser' promised more than it gave. A movie to watch only if there is little else to entertain you.