Primetime ~ Review

It should not be a surprise why To Catch a Predator became a ratings juggernaut in the early 2000’s. Its premise was simple: create a sting operation to lure child predators to a safe house, when the pedophile arrived journalist Chris Hansen would show up and proceed to interview the would-be predator. The men would usually flee the scene where law enforcement officers would proceed to arrest them, all documented on hidden cameras. This was taking the worst person an audience member could think of and ritualistically humiliating them on television for their entertainment. Of course, the question really becomes…is that justice? Can justice be enacted through a camera lens? If it can what does that say about us as a society? Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime attempts to explore those issues, butting up against the meta text of this being a fictionalized account of real events. It’s a thorny movie, with huge thematic ambitions, but doesn’t quite stick the landing.

Loosely based on real events and adapted from Luke Dittrich’s 2007 Esquire article “Tonight on Dateline, This Man Will Die” – Primetime follows Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) circa 2006 as he and his producer Andie (Merritt Wever) as they try to make To Catch a Predator the biggest show on television. “I want this bigger than Lost!” NBC head Jeff Zucker tells them when he moves their time slot to compete with Lost. Important note: Jeff Zucker plays himself in the film, further blurring an already fuzzy line between reality and fiction. To that end Chris wants a whale for To Catch a Predator in other words, a big-time child predator who has power. At the same time, wannabe actor Dan Plumb (Skyler Gisondo) is cast as one of To Catch a Predator’s decoys (professional adult actors who portray the children the predators are set to meet). But a big fish looks to be on the horizon when the Predator team lures Texas assistant district attorney Bill Conradt (Alex Winter) into its orbit. Chris is giddy at the prospect and partners with local Texas law enforcement to layout the sting even as a National Enquirer reporter begins to dog him about his possible infidelity. 

Primetime asks a lot of questions about ethics, morality, reality, and ultimately justice. Lance Oppenheim shoots the film like a late period Tony Scott film with acid washed cinematography, closeups, and rapid-fire editing making Primetime a dizzying, haunting, and unsettling experience. What is most fascinating about the film is the way it portrays Hansen himself. Hansen is a well-known figure at this point, a fixture of meme culture (even made an appearance on South Park) and has created various imitations of To Catch a Predator’s format in the intervening years. Here, the script by Ajon Singh and Pattinson’s skin crawlingly weird performance portrays Hansen as a man trying to understand humans and human depravity. In the film Hansen believes he’s waging a crusade against actual literal evil in the world (the real-life Chris Hansen has made his disdain for the film well known). But the story does not delve deeply into Hansen putting the audience at a remove from him. Is this a commentary on the way a TV camera automatically removes the audience from engaging with a subject? I’m not sure the technique works, but it does make you want to know more about Hansen.

Wever is fantastic as the producer trying to keep the ship afloat. With a wade of gum constantly jammed in her mouth, she does what needs to be done. Does she have an ethical code? Not if it gets in the way of getting the episodes out on budget and on time. Will she mother the decoy if it gets the best results? Yes. Will she care about them 10 minutes later? Absolutely not.

Pattinson will be getting the majority of coverage (all well-deserved) it’s Gisondo as the naïve Dan who steals the picture. He plays Dan with an aching sweetness that is gradually eroded over the course of the film as he falls deeper and deeper into Hansen’s orbit. It’s a funny, weird, and heartbreaking performance that will hopefully be remembered come awards season.

While, not a perfect film, Primetime is a challenging exploration about whether the ends justify the means, and what is justice when there’s no real sense of reality. It’s a film I’ll be thinking about for a long time to come.

Three out of Four Stars