“Primetime” Review

A line recurs throughout “Primetime,” sometimes said by Robert Pattinson’s Chris Hansen to a predator, sometimes muttered by Hansen to himself, and one time spoken directly into the camera: “What would have happened if I wasn’t here?” This question gets closest to an overarching theme in this stylish take on Hansen’s genre of vigilante entertainment, but it is explored only superficially as director Lance Oppenheim uses impressive visual panache to compensate for what turns out to be a shallow story lacking anything interesting to say.

The story follows Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) as his popular program, “To Catch a Predator,” gets pushed into a primetime time slot. To remain competitive with other networks, Hansen and his producer Andie Bender (Merritt Wever) must seek out more dramatic stories, bigger targets and more high stakes encounters. With the help of a pair of decoys (actors who perform as children to bait prospective pedophiles), Hansen and Bender keep chasing bigger thrills regardless of morality or consequence to achieve the prestige they think their work deserves.

Using his background in documentaries, Oppenheim is comfortable creating montages and visual art out of otherwise mundane moments, intercutting the real-time action with, at various points, expressionistic imagery or contemporary television footage. As much as he gussies it up, Oppenheim can’t distract enough from the fact that the story plays out as a straightforward recitation of facts, lacking any insight into its characters or their motivations. This real event happens, then this one, then this one, until you’re left wondering what the point of it all was.

Pattinson is mesmerizing, but would have been better served with a more confident director who could have reined in some of his more exaggerated impulses, such as in one scene when he mocks Merritt Wever’s producer’s ambition of making “To Catch a Predator” the number one show in the country. Pattinson’s Hansen never feels like a real person, which has as much to do with Pattinson’s performance as it does a screenplay that doesn’t seem to have an opinion on who this man is. Is he an ambitious opportunist or a true believer in his show’s morality? Nobody seems to have an idea, so the film’s protagonist and all of the action he affects comes off thematically confused.

Back to that question I introduced at the beginning of this piece: “What would have happened if I wasn’t here?” There is an interesting version of this movie that examines the media complex that produces shows like “To Catch a Predator,” asking whether the creatives, the executives and even the audience for such programs are implicated in the misery they exploit and put on TV. Aside from that one repeated question, though, the film falls far short of plumbing this theme for any genuine insights, instead relishing in the lives of these amoral careerists who see neither victims nor criminals but only an assortment of content to be used to advance their own personal goals.

Nobody has morals when money, fame and prestige are on offer and while that cynicism may be an accurate reflection of this world of justice entertainment, it neither challenges nor provokes an audience into deeper thinking. “Primetime” delivers a slick take on the world of Chris Hansen and features some wonderful performances, yet leaves a lot of meat on the bone regarding its morally ambiguous subject matter.

Primetime
Rated R for disturbing sexual material, graphic nudity, some violent content and language.
Running Time: 1 hour and 50 minutes

Director Lance Oppenheim
Writers Ajon Singh
Stars Robert Pattinson, Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers
Rating R
Running Time 109 Minutes
Genres Biography, Crime, Drama, Thriller