Primal

Synopsis

A confined space. Two predators. One is human.

Frank Walsh makes his living in the spaces most people avoid. A hunter and collector of rare animals, he operates in the margins of legality, supplying zoos and private buyers with creatures that exist at the edge of extinction. His latest acquisition is a white jaguar, an animal so rare that its value is measured not in currency but in obsession. Walsh books passage on a cargo ship heading from the Brazilian jungle to the United States, caging the jaguar in the hold alongside his other captures.

The ship also carries a human cargo: Richard Loffler, a political assassin being extradited under heavy guard. When Loffler engineers his escape below decks and releases the jaguar as a diversion, the vessel becomes a floating hunting ground. The corridors are narrow. The animal is fast. Loffler is faster in a different way. Walsh finds himself caught between two apex predators, one motivated by instinct, the other by calculation.

Director Nick Powell, a veteran stunt coordinator and second-unit director on films including The Bourne Identity and The Last Samurai, stages the action within the physical constraints of the ship itself. Nicolas Cage brings an unpredictable energy to Walsh, part self-interest, part grudging responsibility. Famke Janssen plays the physician tasked with keeping Loffler alive for trial. Kevin Durand and Michael Imperioli round out a cast that understands the film's tonal register: genre filmmaking played with conviction rather than irony.

Massimiliano "Max" Musina served as Executive Producer on the film, which was shot in Puerto Rico and distributed by Lionsgate.