This overview is predicated on a screening from the Venice Movie Competition. Primetime is in theaters on September 25.
You don’t must be conversant in Chris Hansen or To Catch a Predator to get pleasure from Primetime — director Lance Oppenheim’s characteristic debut — nevertheless it definitely helps. That’s not as a result of the film sticks intently to actual occasions, however quite, as a result of it takes some audacious swings whereas purposefully fudging the timeline. Watching precisely how and why it takes these liberties is a delight of its personal; the result’s a sleazy, rollicking, razor-wire drama that’s each bit concerning the rise of actuality TV as it’s a non secular a part of it. Something is truthful recreation if it makes for story.
It begins with TV persona Hansen (Robert Pattinson) privately repeating sexually specific chat logs despatched from a skeevy former Marine (Tony Revolori) to a fictitious adolescent. As he rehearses to ambush the unsuspecting perv — the premise of his hit sting operation, which ran from 2004 to 2007 — the film begins to disclose its lurid thrives. Awash in shadow, its heightened model of Hansen is a cartoonishly sinister determine who steps earlier than the cameras with all of the boastful poise of a Broadway veteran. When he lastly reveals himself to Revolori — after gazing at him by way of a crack in a door, like some stalker or slasher villain — he towers over the previous soldier like a hunter cornering prey.
As his present rises by way of the ranks, NBC executives make keen calls for — Greater! Flashier! Extra! — which leads Hansen and his staff to extra opportunistically (and extra voraciously) pursue potential perps, ultimately chasing somebody they believe of getting a place of affect. These within the know will acknowledge this throughline as that of the sequence’ botched episode emanating from Murphy, Texas, and the topic of the incredible long-form Esquire piece on which Primetime was primarily based. Nonetheless, en path to that tragic debacle, the film takes extremely entertaining turns, buoyed by a raucous visible power whereas remaining rooted in surprisingly cogent drama.
The movie has no qualms about its culprits’ misdeeds, nevertheless it makes positive to border Hansen and, properly, nearly everybody concerned with the present as some sort of seducer too, whether or not by way of its visible framing or its solid’s creepy physicality. A magnetic Merritt Wever performs Hansen’s fictitious producer Andie Bender, whose well mannered tone disguises exploitative instructions, whereas Matthew Maher portrays the actual Xavier Von Erk, the keyboard warrior enthusiastically ensnaring potential perps. Rounding out the sting crew are the skilled, conscientious grownup decoy Del (Phoebe Bridgers), a self-professed activist who has the bait-and-switch means of welcoming youngster predators down pat, and nubile newcomer Dan Plum (Skyler Gisondo) — primarily based loosely on Dan Schrack — a wannabe actor out to show himself and be a part of the Display screen Actors Guild.
Gisondo is the film’s naïve coronary heart and soul. Whereas initially unaware of the job he agrees to, Dan is raring to please his bosses, particularly the imposing Hansen, with whom he kinds a perverse father-son dynamic. All Dan desires is approval, however Hansen’s consideration is at all times elsewhere, both on attempting to up his TV scores, or on retaining the phantasm of home bliss along with his spouse and sons, whereas he’s both out philandering — a later improvement in Hansen’s life introduced ahead for the film — or worse, earning profits off garish spectacle.
The actual Hansen hasn’t seen the movie on the time of this writing, although this hasn’t stopped him from threatening authorized motion. Regardless, it’s laborious to think about he’d be happy with Pattinson’s portrayal — however sadly, he is perhaps alone in his displeasure. The Batman star has by no means been higher or extra explosive, delivering a jester-like efficiency as a person envious of different information hosts’ success — and by proxy, of the period of war-as-entertainment. Pattinson smuggles, beneath the character’s healthful poise, a petulant, paranoid man with a distinctly rehearsed high quality. That he nails Hansen’s voice is a unbelievable celebration trick, however that is, fairly fittingly, the one really Hansen-esque factor about him. He’s Chris Hansen in identify and occupation; in spirit, he’s an impish embodiment of Hollywood id on the flip of the century, a TV panorama outlined by façade, and the willingness to step on anybody to get forward.
Pushed sufficient to consider his personal hype, Hansen instructions the film’s breakneck unfurling because the sickly centerpiece of a number of speedy montages and a palette that’s each oversaturated and has an excessive amount of distinction for consolation. Its sensory re-creation of low cost, mid-2000s video recordings makes it particularly eerie, as if Primetime had been a model of a occasions we had been by no means meant to see — made all of the extra haunting by Hansen’s unusual segues into fictitious Indian folklore, meant to construct himself up as some non secular savior.
The dialogue and its double meanings are extremely on-the-nose — what Hansen says, versus what he means deep down, is a disconnect obvious to everybody however him — leading to some jaw-dropping hilarity. Whereas there’s definitely a wider dialogue available concerning the present’s strategies and its fashionable legacy, this dialog is already underway courtesy of the aforementioned Esquire piece, in addition to David Osit’s 2025 documentary Predators, an intimate retrospective on the sequence.
Primetime, then again, is a macabre, poetic echo of the temptations To Catch a Predator first tapped into. Its public pillorying led to loads of circumstances that couldn’t be prosecuted, however the movie doesn’t search to color that wider image. It as an alternative stays nauseatingly centered on the bottom wishes of the present’s creators and its followers, which it dramatizes by way of its radioactive texture. The movie feels virtually poisonous, with characters who’re completely off-putting to look at, whether or not by the use of Wever continuously popping her chewing gum, or a cameoing Creed Bratton (of The Workplace fame) showing as a Hansen admirer turned on by fantasies of violence.
On the middle of all of it is Pattinson’s borderline sociopath. His Hansen is an animated, empty, Patrick Bateman-like vessel for superstar attract, who stays the fulcrum of Oppenheim’s spinning, voyeuristic digicam and its high-octane thrills. These are born not from weapons and bombs, and even the stakes of catching a predator, however from the sheer exhilaration of seeing simply how low Hansen and his cohorts will stoop to create leisure, paving the trail for the content-at-all-cost panorama during which we stay at present.
Hi, I’m Rishab. I’m a passionate pc gamer and an avid video game content writer. I have been involved with video games for over 2 decades now, and even today, after playing an astronomical number of games over the years, I’m still eager for more. In my free time, you will find me enjoying a hot cup of coffee and playing my favorite relaxing fishing game, Dave the Diver.
