REEL | 'Primetime' – Robert Pattinson Catches the Real 'Predator'

"You see how this looks."

A24 / Elevation Pictures

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Lance Oppenheim, known for his artful explorations of strange American subcultures, makes his narrative feature debut by directing Primetime, stylishly dramatizing the real-life controversy surrounding the eventual downfall of the wildly popular but highly problematic mid-2000s Dateline NBC news program To Catch a Predator, as chronicled in journalist Luke Dittrich's 2007 Esquire article, "Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die."

Starring an absolutely unleashed Robert Pattinson as the slimy but self-righteous host Chris Hansen, "The Predator Hunter," who's still at the same self-important schtick on his own TruBlu streaming network, the film recounts both sides of exposing potential child abusers who have not actually committed any crime (yet) while being entrapped for entertainment and public shaming purposes. His unhinged performance is a live wire of bombastic energy, letting it rip off any real constraints.

Co-starring Merritt Wever as his producer, Skyler Gisondo and Phoebe Bridgers as adult-aged teen decoys, and Anna Faris as Hansen's long-suffering wife, the ensemble fleshes out the various production and off-camera roles of those involved in catching these "predators" in the swarmy television sting of dumb and disturbed men seeking underage companionship or possibly far worse.



Filmed in a hyper-stylized but period-appropriate 2000s-era CRT gloss, first-time screenwriter Ajon Singh's unsettling script lays bare the characters' obsessive, voyeuristic fixation on turning fact and fiction into televised fame. It's another cautionary tale of exploitation and greed under the guise of public safety and protection.

Primetime takes a slickly bleak but dynamic approach to examining the eccentricities of twisted human morality. It's a must-watch media satire for those obsessed with the often exploitative and misleading true-crime genre of entertainment media in judgment of others as a weak but easy sense of moral high ground.

Finally, if you have not already seen director David Osit's excellent recent documentary, Predators, covering the same material in non-fiction form, it's a sober examination of our collective obsession with televising rogue justice that features Hansen himself in a gripping interview defending his dubious (at best) actions and life's work persecuting these troubled men in public.


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