There’s going to be a lot of people who go to see Primetime who are going to come away from the film not very happy. The Lance Oppenheim-directed picture is very much an art house picture. At face value, it appears to be about reporter Chris Hansen and his mid-2000s show, To Catch a Predator. When you have Robert Pattinson in the trailers, saying “I’m Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC,” what are you going to think? Of course this is about the mid 2000’s news/reality program about catching pedophiles. That’s just the framing device, though, for a film that’s actually about the nature of obsession and fixation.
A Surreal Parable
Primetime is a parable. There’s little sense in discussing what the film gets right and wrong about reality. It’s not concerned with that. It takes elements of real life but exaggerates much of it to make a point about its theme. And you can tell that reality is not the goal here. Primetime does not feel real. The colors tend to be oversaturated, and the cinematography is deliberately off-putting at times. The narrative has a distinct linearity to it, but the editing patches it all together in an almost dreamlike progression. There are moments that make you wonder if what you’re watching is a hallucination or an actual event in the movie’s story.
There are two reasons why it’s doing this. One, I believe, is for the sake of legality. Oppenheim and A24 don’t have the rights to Hansen’s life story. But they can make a story about the making of a show without stepping on anyone’s toes. The second reason is that, again, this is not about the reality of events. This is a story about obsession and how it specifically impacts three people. Those people are Hansen, his producer Andie, and one of the decoy actors, Dan. Hansen very much believes in what he’s doing. He might have a bit of an ego about it, but he is heavily concerned with saving children and bringing predators to justice.
Moby Dick In 2026 & Chris Hansen as Ahab
This brings us to a recreation of the famous Herman Melville novel, Moby Dick. That’s, in essence, what Primetime is. Hansen is Captain Ahab, and instead of the whale that took Ahab’s leg, this is about catching the evil that Hansen believes is consuming children’s innocence. This quest is hampered by forces outside his control. He knows he’s been away from his family and strayed in his marriage. He’s trying to fix that, but tabloids are preventing that from happening. The network doesn’t see Hansen as a journalist on the same level as Stone Phillips, and they don’t believe in his mission. The ratings for To Catch a Predator are floundering. How can he continue his mission if he doesn’t have a show? All of this starts to break him down.
Andie is struggling too. Being a producer for the show isn’t easy. There are other “feel-good” shows that want to emulate To Catch a Predator in format but not substance. They want Andie on board. Dan, meanwhile, just wants to be an actor. He just wants his Screen Actors Guild card but gets swept up by Hansen’s quest. It’s something he grows accustomed to while being reminded that this isn’t an acting showcase for him. These performances by Merritt Wever and Skyler Gisondo, respectively, are fantastic. They’re much more grounded than Pattinson’s and pull double duty. Their goal is to be the relatable factor the audience can sympathize with as Pattinson chews up the scenery. In universe, they also serve as the benchmark for the impact of Hansen’s fixation on bringing down predators.
Chris Hansen and Real Questions
It’s been well documented that one of the circumstances that brought the program to an end was the suicide of one of the suspects. Bill Conradt was an assistant district attorney in Texas. He had interacted with one of the online decoys, and Hansen and his team were preparing to spring the trap on him. Instead of luring him to a secured location, though, the team and police went to his home. Conradt killed himself before he could be taken into custody. Would this have happened if not for To Catch a Predator? Did obsession override reason and police procedural elements for the sake of a news story? The film asks those questions, but the answers are less obvious. Partially because this movie is not so much about casting judgment but about studying what drives us.
There has already been, and will continue to be, a lot of discussion about this film being a Chris Hansen hit piece. It isn’t. Hansen has made comments about the film and questioned why it exists. He also sees his work as being about saving children. He doesn’t see a larger picture about the ethics of crossing entertainment with criminal justice. There are valid concerns about entrapment, treatment of the mentally ill, and chain of custody for evidence. Those are things the real-life Hansen and the fictional one have in common. But the film is less about that element of the proceedings and more about human nature. What happens when a desire to do good is warped by the pressures of ratings, human emotion, relationship stress, and the actions of those directly around you?
Primetime is Not for the Mainstream
Primetime is not the kind of film most people are going to enjoy. It’s too artsy to be mainstream and too highbrow to be laid-back entertainment. It’s very well acted and shot. All three of the main actors, Pattinson, Wever, and Gisondo, are fantastic. Wever has an amazing scene of trying to knock sense into Pattinson’s Hansen. Gisondo enjoys more of the quiet moments the movie offers. Those times when someone is trying to find calm in the maelstrom everyone finds themselves in.
It’s not a coincidence that the term “whale” is brought up so much in the film. Yes, it’s a generic term for a big catch, and that’s what Hansen is determined to catch in the second and third acts. He wants his whale. But when the movie is about obsession, it’s impossible to ignore that term being removed from the story of Moby Dick. It’s intentional. Ahab is going mad, and the madness is isolating and spreading at the same time. Primetime is the modern-day retelling of that. If you want an almost surreal and well-acted version of that, then you’ll like what Primetime offers. If you don’t want that, and I don’t blame you if you don’t, this movie isn’t for you.
Rating: 4 Stars out of 5
