He breaks through the curtains, like a superhero. He knows his lines, he hits his mark. His name is Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC, and since he’s played in the compulsively watchable thriller Primetime by Robert Pattinson, it’s hard not to think of Batman as he proceeds down the stairs of a Long Beach home in 2006. The low camera angles and deliberate pace of his steps connote dominance but Pattinson’s not dealing with the Rogues Gallery he squared off against in 2022’s The Batman. Instead, it’s a would-be child predator (played by Tony Revolori), who has a seat, right over there, helpless as Hansen slowly reveals the trap he’s walked into. Anyone familiar with To Catch A Predator, the hidden camera phenomenon that ran for three seasons in the mid-aughts, has seen this scene before but you’ve never seen it quite like this.
Given the response from the real-life Hansen, who has predictably made quite the stink about Primetime in the press, perhaps the biggest surprise director Lance Oppenheim offers in his narrative feature film debut is parity in screen time for the numerous forces behind Predator machine. There’s Andie Bender (Merritt Wever), the show’s executive producer, who manages the delicate logistics behind the sting operations that make up the climax of each episode. We meet Dan Plum (Skyler Gisondo), an actor looking for his first real credit so he can score that SAG card, who gets more than he bargained for when he’s cast as a “decoy” to lure in potential pedophiles. Xavier Von Erck (Matthew Maher), the founder of the vigilante group Perverted-Justice, poses as a minor in online chat rooms to get the perverts to agree to meet in real life.
What Primetime isn’t is an exposé about how everyone who worked on this show, which took on the tricky task of attempting to thwart sexual criminals before they could act, is bad and wrong. I think it’s fair to say a film that moralized that unambiguously would seem foolish and somewhat pointless. Instead, Oppenheim and his screenwriter Ajon Singh (adapting from the Luke Dittrich article “Tonight On Dateline This Man Will Die”) use the pursuit to make To Catch A Predator a hit an allegory for the corrupting influence of fame and money on ridding the world of evil. Much like the reality series it’s covering, the movie gradually becomes less interested in punishing pedophilia through the justice system and more attuned to the insatiable bloodlust of network execs and viewers alike. A conversation Hansen has with a plane passenger, played by a face that will be familiar to those who watched sitcoms around the Predator era, highlights how audiences came to desire violence for the perps over their day in court.
Like Marty Supreme last year, which incidentally sported Robert Pattinson in an uncredited voice cameo, Primetime features audacious casting choices that further bolster its bonafides as an ensemble piece. Bokeem Woodbine is a hoot, as always, as a Texas sheriff who is so revved up to catch him a pederast that he brandishes a comically oversized pistol and promises to do the job himself. Singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers proves she could have more cinematic roles in her future with a nice turn as a decoy that schools Dan in the ways of vocal manipulation for phone calls with the creeps. Somehow, Oppenheim even convinced NBCUniversal executive Jeff Zucker to portray an exaggerated version of himself as he pushes Hansen and Bender to compete against ABC’s Wednesday night juggernaut LOST.
Even though it’s an important meeting, Hansen is actually a few minutes late to it, sparring with his wife (played by Anna Faris) over the phone while glaring at a dangling Rice Krispie Treat in the vending machine in front of him. He hangs up on her, not to run to the face-to-face, but to call the vending service number and protest that one of their machines stole from him. It’s a perfect encapsulation of Hansen’s twisted sense of priority when it comes to right and wrong in the universe and Pattinson plays his pomposity perfectly. Merritt Wever is stellar as his collaborating producer who sees his talent and knows how to wrangle his savior complex but slowly reveals her exasperation at having to constantly smooth over his smug demeanor. Primetime isn’t the measured look at To Catch A Predator that last year’s spellbinding documentary Predators is but it’s certainly an electrifying white whale tale.
Score – 4/5
New movies coming to theaters this weekend:
Digger, starring Tom Cruise and Riz Ahmed, finds a power-mad wealthy oil tycoon embark on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything.
Verity, starring Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson, follows a ghostwriter hired to complete the work of a bestselling author who’s unable to continue her successful book series due to a mysterious accident she’s kept from the public.
Opening at Cinema Center is The History Of Concrete, an idiosyncratic documentary from the creator of How To With John Wilson that turns into a humorous and philosophical exploration of urbanism, the built environment, and the mundane textures of American life.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup