Chris Hansen tapped into something primordial with his legacy-defining To Catch a Predator (2004-2007), a sting-operation show that exposed men looking for sex with underage persons. It wasn’t just Hansen’s self-righteous speechifying, nor was it the lurid details exposed in printed-out text from online chat forums — it was seeing people suffer the consequences for engaging in crimes against children. At the beginning of Lance Oppenheim‘s Primetime, when Robert Pattinson’s Chris Hansen interrogates Tony Revolori for meeting a 13-year-old girl, he inquires: “You see how this looks like, right?” Pattinson beautifully interweaves the audience’s self-satisfaction at exposure with its bafflement at why a grown man would do this, in one magnificent line and facial reading. 

It’s 2006, and Hansen’s To Catch a Predator is a hit. Head of NBC, Jeff Zucker (played by Zucker himself), has to admit that, even if he doesn’t like or understand the show, it’s compelling stuff. Thus, his show is elevated to the 9:00 pm time slot, where it will compete with ABC’s Lost. 

In comes Dan Plum (Skyler Gisondo), a young actor desperate to be part of SAG, who auditions to play a 13-year-old boy for Hansen’s show. Unbeknownst to him, it’s not scripted TV, but live, as cameras are hidden away to capture the first encounter. Due to his dashing looks and boyish voice, Dan is hired and becomes the decoy for many child predators. Decoy Dan is his title name. 

Meanwhile, a stressed Andie (Meritt Wever), Hansen’s trusted producer, is rejecting job offers for competing shows and managing the overbearing Hansen, whose reckless behavior and attempts to supersede her authority to capture a “whale” lead him to work with their sting-operations partner, Xavier Von Erck (Matthew Maher), in a prolonged, detailed entrapment of their biggest target. When Hansen is not desperately searching for whale-like targets, he neglecting to connect with his wife, Mary Joan Hansen (Anna Farris), and two boys. 

Ajon Singh’s script operates less as a biopic or puff piece about Hansen and more as as a deteriorating line of our digital reality, obfuscating people as commodities to be exploited. Whether it’s the predators themselves being the catch of the week, or Dan becoming the bait to lure these predators out of a sense of moral obligation, all elements are weighed in how Hansen and the media glamorized these troubled individuals on a national stage. Additionally, the script intertwines the rise of the digital age, in which glossy scripted programs pale in comparison to being close to real life, as Zucker emphasizes in his meeting with Hansen.

A subplot involving Farris as Hansen’s wife feels more perfunctory than necessary. Outside of one bedroom scene, in which Hansen promises to be a better husband, their relationship is so underdeveloped that it doesn’t offer any emotional weight. This is most true when Hansen is contacted by The National Inquirer about an alleged affair that feels superfluous to the emotional lynchpin of his marriage — marriage given little room to develop. It seems more forced to show the hypocrisy of Hansen presenting himself as a moral person full of virtues, but this inclusion doesn’t resolve itself when it’s dropped off right at the climax of the film. 

Yet, it’s Oppenheim’s debut as a feature director that elevates this sordid tale into a visual tapestry of the early 2000s 4:3 heavy-pixel video format clashing with the future-hybrid of digital space expansion. Many episodes are recreated to capture the high, bright light mixed with the low-resolution texture of standard-definition TV, conjuring the voyeuristic eeriness of hidden cameras capturing your every movement, just as America’s post-9/11 nightmare as a surveillance state was beginning to take form. Oppenheim’s background as a documentary filmmaker seems to have influenced David Bolen’s incredibly immersive cinematography, inducing that crunchy, heavily saturated grain of a hyper-real production.

Whatever method Pattinson employs to submerge into the distinct characters he’s played for over a decade, it’s no secret he has become one of our finest, gifted actors. His portrayal of Chris Hansen is as mesmerizing as it is disturbing. There’s a mania of buzz and excitement Pattinson injects into Hansen that makes him hateable in his conduct but compelling as a screen presence. It’s not just perfecting the voice or having his wardrobe resemble Hansen — it’s in his steely, detached eyes, which make Hansen more carnivorous and callous than innocent and inviting.

Any recognition there is of predators as people, or even in his team that believes in this cause of vigilante justice, is long gone, replaced by the unwavering self-belief of a righteous warrior defending America. It means something when he catches someone, versus the latest episode of Lost eclipsing his show in the ratings. When Hansen ends every interaction with a variation of, “what would’ve happened if I didn’t show up?” Primetime shows Robert Pattinson as a magnificent actor, capable of shedding self-awareness in any role he plays and turning a figure as complicated as Hansen into an ominous figure of skewed justice. 

Skylar Gisondo is wonderful as Dan, taking a character so innocent and naive as to what they’re doing, yet not making him one-dimensional as the butt of the joke. There’s a warm, inviting presence he exhibits that contrasts the oppressive nature of Pattinson; it’s sadder the deeper he’s involved in play-acting these roles for these predators, which takes a toll on his mental health. For him, it’s all performative and controlled under the steady hand of Andie and Hansen, yet when he’s confronted with the awkward dead silence of a predator on his own, Dan can’t be confident or replicate Hansen’s steeliness; he simply chokes on his words. It’s a big breakthrough for Gisondo, whose infectious wide smile and inviting presence have led to what is his best work to date.

Meritt Wever has always been a phenomenal actor, yet her scenes interacting with Pattinson prove to be the funniest in their awkward, off-kilter dynamic as Host and Producer. Andie sees Hansen’s potential and believes her steady hand can elevate the show, yet when two alpha dogs duke it out for the top spot, it takes a toll on Andie, and Wever gets to explore those emotions beautifully. She’s partially the Christof of The Truman Show (1998), eyes glued to the screen, managing her crew, and having to keep Hansen grounded when his fantasies get to his head. 

In a post-9/11 era of TV, where the media made Americans scared of muslims, or manufactured agreement to engage in illegal wars due to the threat of WMD’s, seeing child predators caught in a normal-looking suburban home personified a deep fear, which Americans continue to reckon with when it comes to people in higher positions of power, than a 2006 District Attorney in Texas. 

Oppenheim’s docudrama becomes a slow recrimination on our obsession with consuming reality TV and exploiting a raw nerve at something as innocent as children being hurt for mass consumption. Never have our deep-seated fears of child predators been as engaging and titillating as seeing Pattinson appear on camera and politely ask a potential predator to “take a seat.” Soon enough, we personalize these moments so much that when an airplane passenger sitting next to Hansen asks, “don’t you ever want to bleed them,” Hansen believes what he does is far worse of a fate. 

Primetime is a searing and uncomfortable plunge into the nondescript area of exploitation, consumption, and justice. Pattinson’s uncanny immersion in a man determined to be right about an America plagued with a sickness that must be revealed is as fascinating as it is horrifying to watch a piece of vintage Americana have more prescience now than it did 20 years ago.

Review Courtesy of Amritpal Rai