Directed by: Lance Oppenheim
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Sklyer Gisondo, Merritt Wever, Anna Faris
One of the many puzzling issues with Primetime is why it is painting its protagonist Dateline NBC's Chris Hansen (Pattinson) as a villain. He was the host of the 2000's ratings hit To Catch a Predator, in which the Dateline team snags would-be pedophiles who show up at a decoy home to meet with kids they are grooming online. Hansen confronts the creeps and conducts quasi interviews while toying with their guilt before having the police come and arrest them. The show ended in 2007 and was subject to lawsuits for years after, including by the family of a Texas DA who committed suicide when he was to be arrested on camera for propositioning who he thought was a teenage boy. This is depicted in the movie, but by then, Hansen is depicted as a soulless egomaniac only in search of higher ratings and nothing more.
The movie focuses on the wrong things. We meet a 23-year-old struggling actor (Gisondo), who is hired by Dateline to portray a 13-year-old boy to lure in pedophiles. He has a boyish look and a high-pitched voice which makes him perfect for the job, but he's not as potentially interesting as Hansen. The movie ends not with what happened to Hansen, but with what happens to the actor. It's a way to tack on a happy ending which isn't one we care about anyway. I guess we're happy for him, but what happens to the star of the show?
Despite the repetitive nature of the show itself, it remained a ratings smash, but Primetime doesn't explore that. The movie just ends without resolving anything and without explanations. There isn't even an epilogue detailing what happened to the show, Chris Hansen, or anything else. It has one point of view: Chris Hansen is just as much a monster as the predators he catches in the act, and that my friends is simply bunk.
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