Primetime

by Mike McGranaghan

Last year, the Paramount+ streaming service released an outstanding documentary called Predators that detailed the rise and fall of the Dateline NBC spinoff To Catch a Predator. Director David Osit’s film revealed the dark truths behind the show, which ultimately did way more harm than good. Another documentarian, Ren Faire’s Lance Oppenheim, dramatizes the same story in Primetime, but this movie is focused less on what happened – although it certainly covers that well – and more on the psychology of the people who made it happen.

Robert Pattinson plays To Catch a Predator’s host, Chris Hansen. He’s got the vocal cadence and the mannerisms down pat. This is more than an imitation, though. As depicted here, Hansen is driven by a perceived lack of respect within the network, as well as a rivalry with fellow Dateline correspondent Stone Phillips. His marriage to wife Mary (Anna Faris) has taken a hit because of his ambitions. When NBC executive Jeff Zucker (portraying himself) moves the show to a preferred time slot after its initial success, the pressure is on to deliver bigger, more shocking exposés. Hansen becomes single-minded in the quest to fulfill this mandate. Through Pattinson’s intense performance, we sense the guy is trying to exorcise his own demons through these stings.

Hansen has a producer, Andie Bender (Merritt Wever), who is more like a professional enabler. Her desire for career advancement through the creation of “good television” allows her to easily ignore the ethical issues raised by the show, while simultaneously absolving Hansen of his own responsibility. Then there’s Dan Plumb (Skyler Gisondo), an aspiring actor hired to play a decoy 13-year-old. He takes the gig because he hopes it will land him a Screen Actors Guild card. At first, he plunges headfirst into the role, then gradually grows uncomfortable as he realizes his participation is ruining the lives of the men he lures in, all in the name of ratings, not protecting children.

On the surface, To Catch a Predator seemed like a good thing. Adult men who were looking for sex from teenagers were stopped in their tracks. The flip side was that Hansen and crew were using their humiliation as entertainment. Would they have come had the show’s online tracker not begun the process of trying to make contact, or would they have simply stayed at home on their computers? Primetime explores the thin line that can easily be crossed when real people are made unwitting participants in a TV broadcast, not knowing what they’re in for.

Oppenheim stages the story in a dreamlike fashion. Light sources have a haze around them. Heavy use of shadows and color filters add extra atmosphere. Low camera angles and tight close-ups do the same. From a visual perspective, the film creates a heightened sense of reality that elevates the stakes even further. Nowhere is this truer than in the final half-hour, which almost feels like a horror movie. If you know the true story, you know the incident that ended To Catch a Predator was indeed horrific.

Pattinson is a marvel as Hansen, but his costars are just as good. Wever deserves an Oscar nomination for her turn as Andie. The actress conveys Andie’s sketchy morality with chilling precision, turning the producer into someone whose values revolve around whatever most benefits her. Gisondo does the best work of his career as Dan, who starts off naively optimistic before coming to regret the misery he has caused others. While Dan’s arc is quite real – he’s based on decoy Dan Schrack – it serves as a metaphor for the whole show, i.e. a road to hell paved with good intentions.

Primetime is a disturbing portrait of what reality television can be. There isn’t actually much about it that’s real to begin with. It is manipulation of regular people for the profit of others. After seeing what Oppenheim and his actors do here, you might swear off those cursed programs forever.