Your reaction to Primetime will depend, to some extent, on your feelings about Dateline NBC’s segment To Catch a Predator, in which would-be sexual predators—arriving at houses thinking they were meeting underage kids with whom they intended to have sex—were confronted by host Chris Hansen.
Was it a show that beneficially exposed an epidemic of pedophilia in seemingly safe suburban neighborhoods? Was it exploitation that turned deviants’ misfortune into sleazy entertainment? Or was it somewhere in the middle—a compulsively watchable program that employed questionable tactics in service of a worthy cause?
Primetime, a fictional drama about the series and its star, certainly takes a stance on the matter—and in the bluntest, most obvious, and repetitive way imaginable. Arriving on the heels of last year’s documentary Predators, Lance Oppenheim’s film (in theaters Sept. 25) is almost shockingly one-note, condemning with a crudeness that puts its subject’s methods to shame.
Spearheaded by an unconvincing Robert Pattinson performance that leaves nothing to the imagination, it’s a takedown whose critique is as over-the-top and self-righteous as it is painfully simplistic.
In the lead-up to its release, Hansen has loudly voiced his displeasure with the film, calling it an “insult,” questioning it as potential “identity theft,” and claiming that he wasn’t consulted on the project or allowed to see it in advance because A24 “wanted me to sign away my rights.” Considering its scathing portrayal of the TV personality, his reaction is understandable.
Hansen is initially seen in extremely creepy close-ups of his mouth and eyes as he recites a transcript of the disgusting sexual chat-room comments typed by the deviant he’s about to make a national TV star—an introduction that, by putting pedophilic words in its crusading protagonist’s mouth, equates him with the men he views as villains. Hansen is an ogre from the start and never changes throughout the saga; the fact that this line-reading device repeats at the film’s conclusion reflects the film’s preference for unsophisticated demonization over thorny inquiry and evolution.
As Primetime swiftly reveals, this isn’t the sole thing wrong with Hansen. Doing his “gotcha” schtick on camera, he comes across as a shady weirdo who takes great (borderline-eroticized) pleasure in his toil, and when NBC boss Jeff Zucker (appearing as himself) offers him a primetime slot against ABC’s Lost, his eyes alight with wanton ambition.
He’s additionally a crazy narcissist, as evidenced by a plane ride in which a passenger, after praising To Catch a Predator with off-putting lustfulness, charms him by flattering his ego—thereby compelling Hansen to engage him in conversation.
Before long, he’ll be exposed as a philanderer with a taste for younger women, which further parallels him with his targets. This is all about as subtle as an anvil, and by its conclusion, Primetime is having him talk about pedophilia as a literal “monster” that he sees lurking in the bushes (and which looks back at him), in the process hammering home—for the umpteenth time—its opinion of the TV personality as a compendium of ugliness.
Because Oppenheim and screenwriter Ajon Singh comprehensively define Hansen (and their perspective on him) in the first 15 minutes, Primetime has nowhere to go but pure luridness. Such garishness, however, isn’t directed at the pedophiles caught by To Catch a Predator. Instead, it’s pointed at the production and its host, who spits, slams his fist, screams, and seethes like a deranged degenerate.
Pattinson embodies the character as a seedy, robotic psychopath, and Oppenheim underscores that by having him walk young actors back to their hotel rooms (to make him appear quasi-pedophilic) and lurk intimidatingly behind his producer, Andie (Merritt Wever), like a gross serial killer.
There isn’t a single moment when Pattinson’s Hansen resembles a real-life human being; though his accent is spot-on, his mannered speech, deliberate movements, unhinged glares, and affected smiles turn him into a cross between Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and Heath Ledger’s Joker.
It’s difficult to remember a clunkier turn from the actor, and Oppenheim’s stewardship does him no favors. Employing blooming lights and dark shadows to lend the proceedings a high-contrast visual sickness, as well as fractured mirrors, sinful color filters, and a florid old Hollywood-esque score that serves as both a counterpoint to the grim action and a leaden commentary on everyone’s hunger for the spotlight, the film goes to tremendous lengths to smack its audience over the head with its negative outlook on this reality-TV phenomenon.
Surrounding Hansen are accomplices who know that they’re doing wrong and yet, for the most part, don’t care enough to quit. This collection of cretins includes Wever’s producer, Phoebe Bridgers’ Del Harvey (a young decoy who entraps the pedophiles), and Skyler Gisondo’s Dan Plumb, who dreams of being an actor and is thus stunned and traumatized when he’s thrust into a sting operation that culminates with a man coating his privates in Cool Whip.
That incident is depicted as its own sort of sexual assault (perpetrated, fundamentally, by To Catch a Predator), just as Andie and Hansen’s subsequent attempts to convince him to stay (because he looks so young and is good at the decoy job) are cast as akin to grooming by a pimp or abusive partner. It’s transparent and ham-fisted beyond belief, with the film compelled, over and over again, to tell viewers what it thinks and how they should feel.
Given the exaggerated ominousness of Primetime’s every second, it’s no surprise that its narrative trajectory is toward a tragedy for which Hansen—who craves fame and loves being judge, jury, and boob-tube executioner—is wholly responsible. Oppenheim only depicts To Catch a Predator’s culprits as crying (or, in the case of a rabbi, justly outraged) victims while maintaining his vision of Hansen as an unrepentant fiend who eventually alienates just about everyone around him.
The catalyst for his downfall is his desire to bust a Texas assistant district attorney (Alex Winter), and the director seizes on this mission to deride the state’s cops as dumb, disgusting, trigger-happy conservative fanatics—a crass caricature-driven censure whose lameness is matched by a recurring gag about Rent.
No one escapes the heavy-handedness of Primetime, which damns Hansen and company for predatory behavior and To Catch a Predator for sliminess, even as it indulges in like-minded squalidness. Devoid of nuance, it reimagines the Dateline NBC breakout as a more scandalous affair—and its host as a much bigger lunatic—than was true.
In doing so, it becomes the very sort of cruel, vulgar exploitation it ostensibly dislikes—a bit of irony it ultimately fails to recognize, too busy as it is alternating between mocking the topics it purports to investigate, distorting reality to serve its one-note argument, and patting itself on the back for its denunciation.
