By John Corrado
It’s the mid-2000s, right in the middle of the reality TV boom, and Chris Hansen is using his NBC show To Catch a Predator to turn sting operations capturing pedophiles into entertainment.
This is the premise behind Primetime, director Lance Oppenheim’s quasi-biopic of Hansen turned stylish, disturbing Nightcrawler-esque thriller.
Robert Pattinson stars in the film as Chris Hansen, a correspondent with Dateline NBC who is on a mission to track down and expose child predators. Hansen’s show is built around using decoys to find grown men who are chatting with what they think are teenagers on the internet, and lure them to a house so they can be exposed on TV.
These decoys include Del (Phoebe Bridgers), a young woman who can double as either teenage girl or pubescent boy, and new recruit Dan Plumb (Skyler Gisondo). Dan is an aspiring young actor who lands a part on the show, initially believing that he is being hired for an actual acting role.
Oppenheim’s film is set in 2006, when NBC moves To Catch a Predator to a primetime slot at 9pm to compete with Lost on ABC. This forces Hansen and his producer Andie Bender (Merritt Wever) to start trying to chase bigger and bigger targets. Pattinson’s Hansen is after his “whale,” so to speak, a target so big it will lead to a ratings boom.
This is challenging and uncomfortable material, and intentionally so. The film requires the audience to recognize two things; that these are very bad men they are taking down, but also that Pattinson’s Hansen is on an ego trip trying to boost his own celebrity image, by exploiting these investigations to turn them into lurid, salacious entertainment.
The film forces audiences to confront the darkness of the suspects being targeted on To Catch a Predator, but also the darkness within this cutthroat media landscape that tries to turn true crime into entertainment. At one point, Pattinson’s Hansen talks about how every public square used to have a pillory for people to be whipped. And that’s exactly how he is using his platform to publicly shame these creeps, while searching for the most twisted ones who will make the best TV.
Oppenheim, a young documentary filmmaker primarily known for 2020’s Some Kind of Heaven who is now making his narrative debut, has crafted a gripping and stylistically exciting work. There is a seedy quality to Primetime that captures this time period perfectly, including the different video formats used to mimic broadcast television circa 2006. There are some great uses of split screens as well, with Daniel Garber’s precise editing keeping it moving at a tight 110 minutes.
Gisondo’s Dan in many ways provides the heart of the film, with us watching his wide-eyed idealism slip away as he steps further into Hansen’s dark world. We are also getting to watch Gisondo playing an actor creating a character, including pitching up his voice to sound like a teen boy. While he has been acting since he was a kid, this role feels like a real star-is-reborn moment for Gisondo, showing his full range as an actor.
Front and centre, of course, is Pattinson, who is mesmerizing to watch as Hansen. The role allows Pattinson to go big in a way that fits his narcissistic, shark-like portrayal. While he is exaggerating certain aspects to create a character, his performance is still grounded in being a convincing impression of the real life subject. Pattinson nails the voice and mannerisms, with his vocal versatility alone making him one of our most exciting and talented modern performers.
The suspenseful last act requires Pattinson to go to even darker places as more of Hansen’s god complex emerges, and he maintains a tight hold over the audience. Oppenheim has crafted a slick but nasty thriller, a piece of work that is at once both accessible and uncomfortable to watch.
