"Primetime" review — A frenetic trip down the dark side of television history
“You see how this looks, right?”
During its original run from 2004–2007 on NBC, Chris Hansen’s To Catch a Predator, originating as part of Dateline NBC, was no stranger to controversy and criticism. The show revolved around the relatively simple premise of baiting and exposing potential online child predators, who were using the earliest forms of internet instant messaging to prey on what seemed to be children on the internet. Of course, the predators featured in this show were never really chatting with minors, but members of the show’s staff, who lured these men into sting operations, where they would meet Chris Hansen, his army of TV cameras, and, eventually, the police. Whether or not any of the shenanigans performed by Hansen and team could constitute a true criminal investigation was at the heart of most of the controversy that surrounded the series. Many of the alleged criminals never faced justice because of the obvious element of entrapment that Predator was built around. It was mired in the complicated, ancient crossroads of justice and entertainment. The show never completed a full first season and only managed to release twenty episodes over three years. Production was abruptly halted after one investigation resulted in the suicide of Texas assistant district attorney Bill Conradt in November 2006. The show aired its final episode in July 2007.
The debut narrative feature from filmmaker Lance Oppenheim, breaking away from his normal repertoire of documentaries, Primetime tells the story of To Catch a Predator throughout 2006, when the show moved from being an occasional recurring segment on Dateline to having its own, self-sufficient “primetime” slot on Wednesday nights. The film is a murky, heavily stylized interpretation of history, which builds itself off distinctive, truly unique visual language. Primetime dodges any sort of meaningful or traditional biopic approach to Hansen and his series, instead opting for a much more critical, obsessive lens, where the film’s internet predator-catchers are really the ones under the spotlight. It’s a curious study on obsession and morality, backed by some of the sharpest and most memorable filmmaking the year has offered yet. Is Chris Hansen a good man? Is he a bad man? Do either of these labels mean much of anything? Primetime isn’t so sure, not like it should give the viewer anything resembling a definitive “take” on the ethics of Predator. The film is ready to provoke constant questions and provide very few satisfying answers as it breaks apart a twenty-year-old TV phenomenon.
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| Photo via A24. |
In its opening scene, Primetime treats its audience with a glimpse into the inner workings of Hansen’s operation, when a former Marine (played by Tony Revolori) is lured into one of his traps. The man arrives at a suburban home, ready to meet who he believes to be a teenage girl. At the doorway, a voice invites him to sit at the kitchen island and help himself to a cookie. The trap springs. Hansen (played by Robert Pattinson) emerges from a second-floor curtain like a natural-born showman, with a clipboard in hand, ready to confront the would-be predator with his string of sexually explicit online messages. They talk. The man at the island appears remorseful, even suggesting he should get the electric chair for what he’s done. Hansen reveals his identity as the TV cameras and microphones come out. The predator runs from the house, only to be tackled into the lawn by police officers (including one in a ghillie suit) waiting for him outside. And so, Hansen has caught another one. He and his crew are on to the next state, town, and hapless internet pervert, but not before Hansen receives some life-changing news from NBC: his show is going to, you guessed it, primetime.
Soaked in the scuzzy, lurid colouring of early 2000s digitized reality television, Primetime masterfully makes the style of the movie an integral part of its substance. The film isn’t so much interested in being a perfect account of history, or Hansen’s life, but rather a reinterpretation based on memory of the legacy of the show. The film operates within the same sort of visual playground as Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and Buddy from recent months, just with a different target emulation in mind. Director Oppenheim recreates the poorly digitized, stuck-in-480p world of the early-aughts reality TV filmmaking, before blowing every colour out to maximum through a hazy 16mm film scan output. He and cinematographer David Bolen are using all manner of cameras here, creating a diverse layout of perspectives, image fidelities, and operational methods. The cinematography matches the hurried, slapdash vibe of the featured TV production, with all the same fake, unreal houses and security camera footage reels. The film is easily one of the most stunning and unconventional of the year. It looks quite like nothing else, even with the aforementioned comparisons in mind, with split-screen compositions, abrasive close-ups, grainy imagery, and rapid-fire editing.
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| Photo via A24. |
In this recreation (hallucination?) of television history, the distinctive speech patterns and intonation of Hansen (“Why don’t you have a seat right there?” among other common catchphrases) are embodied by Robert Pattinson, who’s fresh off The Drama and The Odyssey already this year. Pattinson is marvellous, making Primetime another proud gem of a performance on top of an already stunning career. His version of the TV host is a frenetic, frantic devotee of the idol of success. It’s a distinct choice, but one that absolutely works within the context of this gonzo version of Hansen’s show. Pattinson is not the only one in the cast firing on all cylinders, either. Skyler Gisondo plays the film’s second lead — “Decoy Dan,” as the character is called — an actor hired by the show to pose as a teenager, a performance tinged with appropriate levels of fear and uncertainty. Merritt Weaver stuns as the brutal and sharp producer Andie Bender, a composite of real-life figures, who is both an enabler and critic of Hansen’s work. Indie singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers makes her acting debut as another one of the show’s decoy actors. It’s a character that never really goes anywhere special, but Bridgers is perfectly sufficient. Alex Winter brings up the rear as DA Bill Conradt, whose story becomes the main thrust for the film’s final act and furious, brutal ending.
2006 pushes on, and Hansen and his crew become increasingly desperate to get their “whale,” a motherload of an internet predator, who is eventually revealed to be Conradt. Those familiar with the true story of Predator will see the warning signs coming from a mile away, but that doesn’t make the ferocious ending any less effective. Ajon Singh’s screenplay matches the ramping intensity of both Hansen’s show and his personal desperation to keep his private life in one piece. The film manages, by the end, to leave the audience in a thoroughly inconclusive place. The film isn’t an outright condemnation of Hansen or his series, which has been the subject of extensive controversy surrounding Primetime. Instead, we are left with a man and his obsession, who ultimately bring calamity in the name of so-called justice. But is the publicity really justice? Or is it spectacle designed to soothe a deep ache for blood? The U.S. Pentagon recently announced that it would be live-streaming the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, a former army major who murdered thirteen of his fellow soldiers. Pete Hegseth claimed that one of their key reasons for the live stream is because “People need to understand that there’s [sic] serious consequences for these types of things.” It’s this same sort of mindset that Singh and Oppenheim are so masterfully interrogating: when does the spectacle-making of justice defile what justice should be?
Primetime is now playing in theatres.
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