Primetime
A24
In the early 2000s, Dateline NBC's To Catch a Predator was one of the top programs airing on American television. Hosted by Chris Hansen, the show paired NBC with the vigilante group Perverted-Justice to catch men as they entered what was a child's house, exposing the chat logs and sexual intentions of the adult to both the predator and the world watching. The show evoked a massive reaction, gaining wide praise from viewers and law enforcement who saw the cause as a noble effort to catch sick criminals and protect children in newly understood online spaces. Even as it was airing, however, concerns were vocalized over the ethics of the show, both prompting men to act on their horrific desires and to air their cases to the public without any fair trial. It was also noted that the show was not an effective way to gain prosecution for the crimes it was targeting, with only a 15% guilty verdict rate according to Dateline itself. The final nail in the coffin for the program came in 2008 when an attempted trapping of Rockwall County, Texas, assistant district attorney Bill Conradt ended in his suicide when the crew and local law enforcement surrounded and stormed his house. The show's legacy has only grown since, with further attacks adding to the controversy. Lance Oppenheim's Primetime looks at the buildup to the Conradt incident, capturing Hansen (Robert Pattinson) at his most vulnerable as pressures for the show's escalation blend with a cheating controversy that is on the verge of being published.
Contrary to how many view To Catch a Predator today, Primetime is not a pure condemnation of the show or those involved in the same way that David Osit's Predators is. Rather than looking at its characters through a cloud of anger or disgust, Primetime instead chooses to use empathy as its guiding moral code. The film is not interested in attacking the figures involved for what happened, but instead seeks to understand how something like this can form. Obviously drawing from his work as a documentary filmmaker, where he has investigated quirky figures across the United States, Oppenheim shows a talent for pushing beyond the exterior of the story, sinking his teeth into what is happening on the interior.
Naturally, Hansen takes up much of this focus. Hansen is a complex figure, showing an undeniable conviction in the importance of his work while absolutely refusing to admit any fault or regret for the clear consequences of his actions. Primetime is effective at bringing this motivation to a physical space, with Hansen recalling the formative trip he took to India, where he first became involved with the fight against sex trafficking. While the film takes liberties with this story and all the specific details throughout the film, Hansen's cited point of motivation is rather an investigation he conducted in Cambodia in 2003; the basic points still land the same. The film's version of Hansen describes an evil he saw during this journey, an evil he confronted and fought to protect an innocent girl. Hansen still sees this demonic figure lurking. Specifically, he still sees it in the faces of the predators he exposes. He sees no reason to give the subjects any form of empathy, believing he is fair enough by turning them over to law enforcement to let the system decide their sentence.
This point is further reinforced by Pattinson's enigmatic performance that feels impossible to fully pin down. Pattinson is charismatic and humorous in his delivery — feeling unhinged in a way that is reminiscent of some of Nicolas Cage's most iconic bold choices. Yet Pattinson is never a parody of a performance. When one is done laughing at a quirky line, they are left with his brooding stare. Pattinson brings a power to the performance that cuts deep, feeling uncomfortably intense in a way that perfectly matches the character. While it is hard to claim that this is Pattinson's strongest performance, it is equally impossible to say that he has ever produced something like this.
However, Hansen is far from morally perfect himself as a character. The film brings to light the affair Hansen has with Kristyn Caddell (Caroline Hebert), a Florida TV anchor who Hansen wants to break up with to preserve his image as his show gets slotted into the primetime release spot. Especially after a compromising photo of the pair is taken and Hansen is asked for comment before the story is shared, Hansen has an internal breakdown of guilt and shame, which he projects onto the investigation with a greater willingness to take risks. Hansen's insecurity is seen throughout the picture. He values his work with the highest form of meaning, and feels the compulsion to make everyone see it in the same light. Especially once the film gets moved to primetime, the demands for the show to grow more interesting become overwhelming, speaking to the horrifying nature of spectacle. In a meeting with the head of programming at NBCUniversal, Jeff Zucker, who plays himself, it is made clear to Hansen that if he cannot deliver something to captivate audiences as much as Lost, he is finished.
This is seen as the biggest domino that leads to Conradt's death. This shakes the foundation of the show, causing Hansen to lose control and push everyone to their limits. Producer Andie Bender (Merritt Wever) is initially adamantly against an offer to be poached to work on What Would You Do? with John Quiñones, but as the train begins to fall off the tracks, she begins to question her choice. Aspiring actor Dan Plumb (Skyler Gisondo) joins the production as a decoy to act like a child and meet the predators as they arrive at the house, but Hansen's instability gives him what he thinks is a pathway to work his way into a bigger role. Hansen takes on a quasi-paternal role with Plumb, compensating for the lack of time he spends with his own children by taking Plumb under his wing. He speaks to Plumb's own troubles and promises him guidance and safety that he cannot actually deliver. Both Wever and Gisondo are highlights of the film, deepening its emotional core and providing a needed humanity. Every figure in the film suffers from desperation, and the film does a great job of showing how this key fact and lack of leadership develop into tragedy.
This is a difficult angle to fully reckon with. While in the context of Primetime, everything checks out, it does feel like a misrepresentation of what happened in reality. While these forces might have been present, there were foundational problems with To Catch a Predator that the film not only ignores, but basically dismisses. The film paints over these faults, portraying the Conradt tragedy as one that came from a newly formed combination of ingredients rather than one that was destined for combustion from the start. Some of the most popular and respected films of all time have taken true events and have twisted them into something unrecognizable, but with Primetime, it can feel different. The film draws no line between reality and fiction, reflecting on events only a couple of decades old with public figures still active to this day. Not only to misrepresent these events to remove blame, but also to inject comedy and fun into a dark narrative that leads to real death feels off-putting. This is an issue that isn't new to Oppenheim, with his previous documentary work, such as 2024's SPERMWORLD clearly making alterations to what was being projected in order to create a cleaner and more watchable experience for the audience. Ironically, for a film that talks about sensationalism and the misrepresentation of victims, one could claim that the film is doing the same thing. Of course, because the general perception of Hansen is negative, this will never generate real outrage or sympathy, which is the same feeling Hansen carries when the flaws of his program are pointed out to him. While this doesn't ruin what happens within the 110-minute runtime of Primetime — it feels like an angle that should be addressed, and it is understandable that things would get messy with a first-time screenwriter, Ajon Singh, taking on a story with such complexity.
The worst of the film comes from its third act, which becomes an utter mess. Trying to build a final catharsis that is not present in most documentary features, it becomes clear that neither Oppenheim nor Singh knows how to handle things. The film gets lost in dragging out the runway to Conradt, giving itself over to dream sequences and abstraction at the worst possible time. The voice of the film changes, losing touch with reality in a way that feels distracted and forced. The film needed a powerful final punch to hit the nail on the head and make its point, but instead chooses a far weaker delivery that causes a scream to become a quieter whimper.
While the narrative of Oppenheim's narrative debut might falter, the style never does. The film's visual style is consistently strong, with some truly stunning uses of color and lighting. Taking on the look of a 2000s cable TV show, the screen is grainy and vibrant. Daniel Garber's editing is playful yet precise, elevating David Bolen's already impressive cinematography that uses the static nature of the cameras set up to catch the predator's movements well. Inherently, To Catch a Predator was a voyeuristic venture that turned one's worst moment into entertainment for the masses. While the screenplay might not be able to flesh out a thesis on this dynamic, the filmmaking certainly can. Ari Balouzian's score looms over the film, feeling electric just enough to pull the audience in, only to twist itself into something far darker, mirroring the transformation of Pattinson's performance.
Primetime is a project that is easy to get sucked into. There is an undeniable watchability, and even a presence of something more important beneath the entertainment being made from what really is a tragic situation. While Oppenheim's more mature reflection on the subject is welcome, and the choice of viewing the situation with empathy allows for a greater analysis of the systems in place that ultimately are responsible for what happened, the longer one sits with it, the more disturbing it becomes. While on the surface, the lack of a strong third act hurts the power of the film, more quietly, the film begins to take shortcuts that favor the viewing experience of the audience rather than doing justice to the story being told. There is a lot left on the table as far as criticizing those involved and showcasing the inherent flaws in the system they work in, siding with creating an enjoyable spectacle rather than landing a truly venomous bite. This description is the same one that would be used when describing To Catch a Predator, with the core cycle not only being ignored by the film, but ultimately repurposed.
