Primetime

★★★★★

“Why don’t you have a seat right over there?” 

A phrase and its many variations no unsuspecting potential predator would want to hear from a man they wouldn’t wish to meet: Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC. His program To Catch a Predator detailed numerous confrontations and sting operations done in conjunction with police departments and watchdog group Perverted-Justice. At the time of its airing from 2004–07, TCaP was a cultural phenomenon but also very muddled. Most investigations were botched for various reasons and left predators sentenced to very little jail time. Ethically speaking, criticism came from the program – and Hansen by extension – using the deplorable subject of pedophilia and sensationalizing it for entertainment. It’s more about who/what/how these investigations were (these “gotcha” moments of deeply disturbed individuals) and not why they’re happening (protecting children from what could’ve been a traumatic scar).

And therein lies the exploitation, the blurring between journalism and sensationalism. But what if there was a way to smudge it further? Enter Primetime, one of the most brilliant biopics of the year.

Primetime is directed by documentary filmmaker Lance Oppenheim in his narrative feature debut and written by Ajon Singh in his screenwriting debut. Based on the 2007 article “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die,” the film dramatizes the production of TCaP up to the botched sting operation/suicide of assistant district attorney Bill Conradt. It stars Robert Pattinson as Hansen and co-stars Merritt Wever as Hansen’s producer Andie, Skyler Gisondo and Phoebe Bridgers as actors/decoys Dan and Del, and a plethora of character actors (notably Tony Revolori and Alex Winter) as predators.

Right out the gate, Primetime doesn’t paint a very flattering portrait of Hansen nor TCaP. Hansen is presented as an eccentric egomaniac with a warped sense of justice, justifying his exploitative actions as “cleansing the world of an ancient evil.” His motives – the commitment to that “good-doing” and the urge to further sensationalize TCaP as a primetime show – make Hansen an interesting character. With the figure, the film effectively blurs the line between fiction and reality as the show would with predators. As a matter of fact, the first and last time we see Hansen is him softly reciting chat log lines to himself as though he were putting on a performance. Speaking of which, Pattinson as an actor adds a lot to the character, bouncing between dead seriousness and over-the-top oddity. He captures Hansen’s soft-spoken newsperson accent near perfectly and gives each line of dialogue the weight it needs to subtly reveal his personality, notably when he smugly asks Revolori’s character “You see how this looks, right?”

However, Primetime’s primary protagonist is Gisondo’s character, Dan Plum, an aspiring actor who gets hired as a decoy and subsequently gets drawn into the world of Hansen and TCaP. The idea to have Dan as the film’s focal point is excellent narratively and thematically, in theory and execution. In the case of narrative, he’s the audience surrogate allowing them to become just as immersed and disillusioned by TCaP as he is and also characterizes Hansen as this larger-than-life Ahab-like force. But in the case of themes, it pushes the main theme of chasing greatness through controversial means and the moral/personal consequences of it. That same theme goes for Wever’s character, Andie, who also aims to sensationalize TCaP as a primetime show before it spirals into disorder and chaos. On another note, both Gisondo and Wever are absolutely spectacular in their respective roles, managing to match Pattinson’s greatness and then some.

Oppenheim’s visual style also adds substantially to the way Primetime approaches the idea of sensationalized entertainment. The film is shot as though it were a documentary, even going as far to utilize the four-camera panel and the grainy 2000s filter that were common in raw hidden camera tapes of TCaP. There’s also a wonderful barrage of close-ups and lighting used to create visual storytelling. In almost every close or medium shot of him, Hansen always seems half-obscured by shadows creating a two-face. Furthermore, in the brief moments of Hansen’s POV, we see these predators either in darkness or as a demonic entity. Again, this is spectacular visual storytelling and Oppenheim accentuates it with a dream-like quality. Other positives include Ari Balouzian’s wonderfully odd score that matches said dream-like quality as well as the little references to TCaP.

In conclusion, Primetime is a thrillingly intense and unrelentingly raw sensationalization of not just its massively flawed figure and his show, but of exploitative entertainment as well. And once you’ve taken your seat at the start, you’ll find yourself on the edge of it by the end.