To catch a ‘journalist’ | ‘Primetime’ review
Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen. Courtesy of A24.
“Why don’t you take a seat?” is Chris Hansen’s catchphrase to catch predators, but also a pleasantry for viewers to get comfortable as his cathartic exhibitionist show is about to begin. “Primetime” is journalists’ “American Psycho,” a historical fiction neon-noir whose morally gray detective protagonist explores the blurred line between journalism and entertainment, justice and spectacle.
The story follows a mythologized version of Chris Hansen, based on the media personality and host of NBC’s 2004 hit show, “To Catch a Predator.” Through online chatroom sting operations, pedophiles were lured onto the set of the show to meet Hansen and the seven million viewers watching at home. When “To Catch a Predator” gets bumped to the network’s primetime slot with the most potential viewers, Hansen is motivated to find increasingly deviant criminals to further boost ratings.
Chris Hansen has already publicly voiced his disapproval of the film, calling it “complete fiction” and buying an ad slot before screenings of the film to deliver a disclaimer to audiences. Although it doesn’t seem terribly concerned with bringing fact to the forefront, the film fully explores the ethical dilemma of seeking out pedophiles for entertainment, and the tolls it might take on those involved in a production that seeks out such emotionally taxing situations.
With a cultural appetite for gritty exhibitionism, the early 2000s are the perfect backdrop for an analysis of the timeless phenomenon of the public’s voyeuristic tendencies, and the morbid fascination people have always seemed to have with watching justice be served, no matter the cost.
The show worked with local law enforcement but pushed the boundaries of their typical protocols, often rushing demands for warrants or using police officers as “extras” in the final act of the weekly segments. However, because of the rushed handiwork and external involvement from the volunteer group Predator Hunters, the evidence was often incomplete when it came to actually prosecuting the apprehended pedophiles. It seems that Hansen was only using law enforcement to make the show’s crusades appear ethically legitimate and as an excuse to raise the stakes of the “action scenes.” While the situation was highlighted, the ethical ramifications were left underexplored.
The troubled Chris Hansen is portrayed by Robert Pattinson, whose incredibly nuanced performance puts the character’s downward spiral on full display. Batman was just a warm-up exercise for Pattinson. As a harbinger of justice, Hansen’s chosen method of punishment is public scrutiny. But the film attests that the duty of justice is subjective, and the vigilante hero’s obsession with hunting down an “all-encompassing evil” would ultimately be his downfall. The idea of an ultimate evil shows up in a truly chilling recurring motif, injecting the psychological thriller with a touch of pure horror.
With his own personal missteps, Hansen fails to live up to his own projected understanding of morality as good and evil. His public conviction of the pedophiles gives him a sense of power and purpose, but the thought of being on the receiving end of a similar campaign entirely unravels him. He is both prey and predator.
Pattinson not only nailed his performance as Chris Hansen, with attention to the media personality’s iconic cadence and signature mannerisms, but has given an equally strong performance as the person underneath the personality. With the real Hansen’s commitment to his masquerade, Pattinson and director Lance Oppenheim have free rein to interpret the man wearing the mask that is his television work. What we do see of Pattinson’s character in his alone time is unnerving, muttering pedophiles’ inappropriate Internet messages to himself as if he’s rehearsing lines. He’s able to turn on the personality of Chris Hansen with the flip of a switch.
In addition to Pattison’s performance, we get two great supporting characters: Andie (Merritt Wever), Chris’ producer and right hand, and Dan (Skyler Gisondo), a struggling actor taking on the unglamorous, but vital work of being an underage decoy. Both Andie and Dan have complex, beautifully intertwined struggles with Hansen’s own crises. Skyler Gisondo bears the burden of a complicated role, balancing the humor of having to convincingly play a young boy with the emotional weight of becoming a victim in the process.
Stylistically, the film takes a mixed media approach reminiscent of the reality TV of the era, with several sequences seemingly captured on a camcorder. We watch from hidden cameras planted in the decoy’s house, just as original viewers of the television show did. An experimental editing approach connects characters to their real-life counterparts and the surrounding context, playing as if you were flipping through a magazine and clipping faces and names together into a collage. The film’s self-reflexive nature ropes us into Chris Hansen’s thankless work with the same shock value and sensationalization that lured in the show’s original audience.
And “To Catch a Predator” has opened up a subcategory of sting operation entertainment that has since migrated to online forums, in which other independent vigilantes attempt to lure predators for their own content. Audiences are familiar with the sting operation show format, and have become too content with accepting action as activism. In turn, the film has been met with mixed reception, condemned by users on social media, who claim the film’s critique of Hansen automatically sympathizes with pedophiles.
However, this kind of judgement is the very phenomenon that the film’s messaging warns against. It suggests that a conquest towards the idea of an “absolute evil” will only allow lesser, more nebulous evils to slip through the cracks unnoticed.
If audiences don’t bother to look underneath the surface of the colorful cinematography, flashy editing and Pattinson’s brash, compelling performance, they too might find the atrocities easy to watch from behind the comfortable safeguards of a screen.
