Primetime review

PRIMETIME: 

ROBERT PATTINSON TAKES A SEAT AS CHRIS HANSEN! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** ½ out of 4

A24

Television history is about to be made in Primetime.

 

            Robert Pattinson (The Batman, The Drama, The Odyssey) transforms himself from teenage heartthrob and bloodthirsty predator to…Chris Hansen, the host of To Catch a Predator in Primetime, the new film from A24 and director Lance Oppenheim in his narrative feature directorial debut. I should make this clear before I get started: my knowledge of Chris Hansen is paper-thin. I never watched To Catch a Predator, and most of my awareness of him came from parodies, specifically the South Park episode, Le Petite Tourette, where Eric Cartman pretends to have Tourette syndrome so he can say whatever he wants without consequences, which culminates in him being scheduled for an interview with Hansen on Dateline. 

            I understand what Hansen and the show are like: his crew lures pedophiles into a home, Hansen catches and publicly embarrasses them on television, and they get arrested by police. It was definitely a huge risk, especially for a network like NBC, but clearly it was successful, and people still remember and reference the show and Hansen today. 

            Which brings us to this film that chronicles the production of To Catch a Predator,r and the trailers certainly got my attention, especially when it was revealed that Pattinson was going to play Chris Hansen. I think Robert Pattinson is one of the most prolific and exciting actors working today, and this year alone really highlights that. Between this, The Drama, The Odyssey, and the upcoming Dune: Part Three, the Edward from Twilight days are long gone. 

            So, I was more than ready to see him portray Chris Hansen, and I gotta say, I found this film very fascinating and terrifying. I was on the edge of my seat with my skin crawling but also captivated by the story and people involved. 

            The film is set in 2006 and follows journalist Chris Hansen (Pattinson), who hosts the show To Catch a Predator on NBC and conducts sting operations to lure would-be predators into a house where they expect to engage in sex with a minor but are ultimately confronted by Hansen and exposed. NBC head Jeff Zucker (Played by himself) acknowledges the show’s success and moves it to primetime, putting it up against ABC’s Lost, which fuels Hansen’s determination to make To Catch a Predator the biggest television show,n whatever it takes. 

            The film also stars Merritt Wever (Nurse Jackie, Marriage Story, The Gilded Age) as Chris’ producer Andie Bender, Skyler Gisondo (Booksmart, Licorice Pizza, Superman (2025)) as aspiring actor Dan Plum, Matthew Maher (Dogma, Captain Marvel, Our Flag Means Death) as Perverted-Justice founder Xavier Von Erck, Anna Faris (Scary Movie franchise, The Dictator, Mom) as Chris’ wife Mary Joan Hansen, Bokeem Woodbine (Ray, Fargo, Spider-Man: Homecoming) as Cortland Gunn, Alex Winter (The Lost Boys, Bill & Ted trilogy, Freaked) as Rockwall County district attorney Bill Conradt, and Phoebe Bridgers (Between Two Ferns: The Movie, I Saw the TV Glow) as decoy actor Del Harvey. 

            Overall, Primetime is an exhilarating and unsettling look at the world of late-night television and how far people will go to achieve success. I found the movie very fascinating, not just as a dramatization of how Hansen and his crew caught these predators, but as a film that shows people doing the right thing for the wrong reason and, in this case, ratings. 

            That’s not to say Hansen doesn’t care about what he’s doing; he agrees that these pedophiles are horrible people and need to be stopped, but because of his ego and determination to be the best, he’s doing it for the ratings. The movie also explores Hansen’s psyche and how he became the man he is and decided to do what he does, and in true A24fashion, it’s never fully made clear (As if one of their horror movie scripts somehow ended up in this).  

            Robert Pattinson is magnificent as Chris Hansen and really captures his mannerisms, speech, and appearance. Again, most of my Chris Hansen knowledge came from his South Park depiction,n and I very much saw and heard Pattinson recapturing that whether it was intentional or not. 

            I also found Skyler Gisondo very endearing as the aspiring actor who’s hired to play a decoy on the show, with Pattinson’s Hansen trying his damnedest to keep him on the show because of how good he is,s even though he wants to branch out and do other things. I like how he’s essentially someone who had absolutely zero idea what he signed up for initially, gets thrown into an awkward situation with a pedophile, and has no time to properly prepare for what the crew told him to do. 

            The movie looks fantastic but not in a pleasant way; the film is shot like it’s a grainy, overexposed exploitation movie with video cameras and bright lights attached to the camera, where everything’s all washed out and gives this unpleasant look to the movie, which is entirely intentional. The low-quality VHS-style filmmaking is cleverly utilized here to really sell the unnerving feeling of what’s happening onscreen; this, and the horror-comedy Buddy, which I saw recently,y understood the importance of old-school VHS filmmaking without making it seem like a gimmick. 

            Yeah, Primetime is a solid movie with gripping, spine-tingling scenes and amazing performances, especially from Pattinson. It’s a compelling and disturbing look at the production of To Catch a Predator and explores very heavy and relevant subject matter in an effective way; certainly not a crowd-pleaser, but if you know what you’re getting into, it’s quite a ride.