Primetime: Film Review

Logline

From A24:

In 2006, To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen sets out to make television history.

Review: Pulling a Hansen on Hansen

The three best films about the dangers of television are Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd (1957), Sidney Lumet’s Network (1976), and Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (2000). In Kazan’s film, a humble man becomes a national sensation; in Lumet’s, a female network executive exploits her on-camera talent’s suicidal ideations for the sake of better national rankings; and in Lee’s, a Black network executive’s joke pitch becomes a success, much to the disappointment of himself and most Black people. All take different approaches, but every one of these films focuses on a character who becomes so enveloped in the ratings rat race that they lose themselves in the process. 

In Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime - his first narrative feature and third overall - we study a man, obsessed with his image, who has lost himself seemingly before his personal rat race even begins, but instead of trying to find himself, he learns to maintain a version of himself fabricated for his sensationalized entertainment. Only time will tell whether or not it will supplant those three, but in Primetime, there’s certainly the strongest contender since Lee’s underrated 2000 masterwork. 

Primetime follows the true rise of Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) and his infamous Dateline NBC program, To Catch a Predator, a show focused on tracking and trapping pedophiles across the country. The film explores the ins and outs of Hansen’s production; his team of trackers, decoy actors, and producers; and his psyche as the show earns a spot on NBC’s Wednesday Primetime line-up. The production grows increasingly difficult, though, as both Hansen’s and his producer Andie’s (Merritt Wever) attachment to ratings begin to affect all involved and the already thin integrity of the program. 

Where is the line? The film’s obvious Nightcrawler (2014, dir. Dan Gilroy) influence makes obvious that Hansen’s dubious methods of entrapment create their own set of ethical and moral dilemmas, especially when they’re produced for television - Network creeps in as well through Merritt Wever and specific plot movements - but what’s conversely interesting is that the film’s style, execution, and mere existence ultimately has the same effect as Hansen’s work: sensationalized and borderline exploitative. The film is smart to not venerate Hansen - it instead depicts him as locked in a prison of his own making and as almost being psychologically tortured - nor pass blame on any one individual, but in ways, Primetime feels intentionally just as guilty. 

I think Oppenheim wants us to feel bad for laughing. To Catch a Predator has been meme-d to hell, and for many young people, it is primarily viewed as a funny piece of media, regardless of its serious subject matter - the Precious effect.