Arts
The thankless hero is someone everyone should aspire to be at one point or another — no need for praise, recognition, or rewards in exchange for good deeds. In “Primetime,” Robert Pattinson portrays television anchor Chris Hansen as a man who craves that glory for both himself and his crime-catching, hidden-camera sting series.
The psychological thriller follows a dramatized depiction of Hansen’s hit investigative reality television show “To Catch a Predator” as it secures NBC’s most coveted programming slot: prime time. Attempting to obtain and sustain a viewership high enough to rival ABC’s behemoth “Lost,” Hansen is determined to do anything to keep his controversial yet popular series at the top.
The film introduces Hansen and his producer Andie Bender (Merritt Wever) as they begin a sting operation in Long Beach, California to catch their first target (Tony Revolori). After being drawn into the camera-rigged house by minor impersonator Del Harvey (Phoebe Bridgers), the ex-Marine child predator sits on a stool when Hansen appears from the top of a stairwell, descends, and as a final blow delivers his signature line: “You see how this looks, right?” As the predator gulps in fear and asks about the electric chair, cameras appear and Hansen begins his spiel, signalling the beginning of an almost worse fate: public humiliation.
“Primetime” arrives as the first narrative feature for director Lance Oppenheim ’19. The Harvard alum has no shortage of experience with direction of real-stories; under his belt are documentaries “Some Kind of Heaven,” “Spermworld,” and “Ren Faire,” all including his unique docu-fantasia choices. This history with a heavily-stylized approach appears to have served Oppenheim well in his transition to feature fiction.
Oppenheim’s grade-A filmmaking situates audiences right in front of the static television for just under two hours — never under- or over-paced with a minimalist yet precise style that allows for total viewer immersion. First-class access is given to Hansen’s intricacies as a figure who perceives himself to be the bearer of societal justice — separate from the journalistic persona the real-life Hansen exudes. Hansen himself asks the caught adults, “What would have happened if I wasn’t here?”
And it’s not just the pacing that makes the film a standout, but also the blocking and color grading. A standout scene that combines these excellencies is that of a showdown between Hansen and a rabbi (Bob Ari). Rattled by an eerie phone call, the television anchor arrives even more confrontational than usual. As he picks and probes, Hansen’s face is well-lit and the only object in frame. But when the rabbi fights back and asks, “Who do you think you are?,” his face loses all light as the frame shifts to a dimly-lit, almost pitch-black image of his beady, dissociating eyes as if the phrase held a double meaning. Quickly, a bright light washes over his face and Hansen clocks back in to work.
It is easy to categorize Pattinson as exceptional in his portrayal of Hansen. With a practically identical cadence and just the right amount of expressiveness, the actor convincingly melts into Hansen and showcases him as a performer ready for the stage rather than merely a television host confronting America’s evil spawn. Hansen displays an uncomfortable vanity in both himself and his work, which Pattinson compellingly demonstrates.
This obsession extends beyond the casual practicing of lines in the mirror and in the studio. At home, Hansen wakes his two young sons from their sleep to show them “Predator” on television, answers phone calls from his wife with his work tagline, and at times appears to act like God. Memorably, Hansen has a conversation with a neighboring passenger on a plane about the kind of work he does to “cleanse the world of an ancient evil” — work which has consumed his being and led to a failing marriage, infidelity, and the brink of a nervous breakdown.
While this exhibition of personality is useful for the viewers to understand Hansen, it at points feels too dramatic, even for a purposely dramatized project. The shallowness Hansen is written with could not even be saved by one of Pattinson’s career-high performances. Nor could the film’s darker themes be tactfully tackled with the help of standouts Wever and Skyler Gisondo as Dan Plum, the latter of whom successfully portrays a grown adult with the naivete of the 13-year-old boy he impersonates.
If anything, “Primetime” begins to point at a larger problem: the dangerous conflation of heroic action with sensationalized entertainment. After leaving his first shift shocked, Hansen has to work his anchor charm to convince Plum that he’s doing meaningful work, almost pleading him to stay on — if not for himself and the Screen Actors Guild membership card he desperately wants, then for the show and the children being helped. As evidenced by Plum, there’s a moral reckoning characters have to face as they work on a series focused on child predators — either commit to the bit and risk losing part of your soul or leave. Oppenheim’s project brings a sobering thought to the table: Maybe, real moral integrity is best executed quietly rather than being manufactured for the spotlight.
At times, “Primetime” suffers from underdeveloped plot points. However, the film overall subjects Hansen to an examination so enthralling it’s hard to look away. The sheer entertainment quality makes the runtime feel like no time at all. With a stellar cast, laugh-worthy one-liners, unnerving cinematography, and above all, a look at the ego that might hide behind crusades, Oppenheim transforms a piece of pop culture into a tool for evaluating the cost of spectacle.
—Staff writer Emily G. Fallas-Chacon can be reached at [email protected].
