Primetime

On one hand of the exploitative spectrum you had The Swan, in which a group of “ugly ducklings” underwent extensive cosmetic surgery they didn’t sign up for in order to see who could undergo the most extreme transformation and win a beauty pageant. Then there was Kid Nation, about a group of children left to their own devices in a New Mexico ghost town and tasked with forming a functioning society. (Spoiler alert: they didn’t.) Most (in)famous of all, perhaps, was To Catch a Predator, a Dateline NBC production that followed Chris Hansen as he confronted men who believed they were arriving at a minor’s house after chatting with them online. Once there, they were ambushed by a television crew and told to have a seat.

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Like last year’s probing documentary Predators, Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime grapples with troubling questions that don’t seem to have occurred to the original show and its producers: namely, whether made-for-TV entrapment is the same thing as justice and if turning sting operations into catchphrase-heavy entertainment actually benefits society in any meaningful way. Those who prey on children obviously deserve to be dealt with by the justice system, but does sensationalizing and broadcasting their would-be crimes make anyone safer? Further complicating the show’s legacy is the fact that several of these cases were never prosecuted because the amateur sleuths NBC worked with rarely followed procedure.

If matters related to journalistic ethics were the only controversies surrounding the show, this movie probably wouldn’t exist. Anyone who knows the circumstances that led to To Catch a Predator’s cancelation will also know how Primetime ends, and seeing it play out onscreen has an air of harsh inevitability. Oppenheim, a 30-year-old who’s mostly worked in the nonfiction space until now, has emerged as one of the fall’s most buzzed-about filmmakers: You Can See Everything, the Elizabeth Holmes documentary he co-directed with cringe-comedy savant Nathan Fielder, arrives in theaters a few short weeks from now.

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Robert Pattinson, who’s in the middle of an annus mirabilis, is just as magnetic here as he was as a scheming suitor in The Odyssey and a reluctant groom-to-be in The Drama. (He has the chance to go four for four with December’s Dune: Part Three.) His dead-behind-the-eyes embodiment of Hansen certainly isn’t interested in justice, only beating Lost in the ratings and being as widely admired as fellow Dateline anchor Stone Phillips. Oppenheim and cinematographer David Bolen zoom in on their star’s face with the same leering precision that NBC did when filming unsuspecting men walking into their sting house.

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Asked in an early scene whether he ever wants to “bleed” the predators he catches, Hansen responds with a laugh that “maybe what we do is a little worse.” You can easily imagine Pattinson playing American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman next, his performance evincing the same blend of charisma and sociopathy. (The actual Hansen, for his part, hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory by reacting to Primetime’s existence in his usual self-promotional manner.)

Anyone who knows the circumstances that led to To Catch a Predator’s cancelation will also know how Primetime ends, and seeing it play out onscreen has an air of harsh inevitability.

Merritt Weaver, who’s never not excellent, is equally great as the cynical producer who helps make To Catch a Predator a force to be reckoned with. In a lot of ways, however, Primetime’s true protagonist is Dan (Skyler Gisondo), an aspiring actor recruited to play one of the “decoys” who answer the door for the predators in question before Hansen delivers the coup de grâce. He’s told almost nothing about the role in advance, thinking it’s going to be his big break and establish him as a bona fide thespian.

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On the other side of the law as the predators but the same side of the camera, Dan is considered bait, not an actor, by the show’s higher-ups: a tool to be used, not a colleague to be respected. His disenchantment is increasingly evident throughout the film, which charts the light fading from his eyes as vividly as it does Hansen’s moral deterioration. The most — if not only — sympathetic character in the entire film, he’s also its moral compass. You can probably guess whether anyone follows it.

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“There used to be a pillory in every town,” Hansen tells Dan when he’s having second thoughts about continuing, “Now there’s a television in every home.” He believes in naming and shaming these men, not that he has much shame himself, and it’s clear there are no means that won’t justify this end. In one of Primetime’s best, most memorable sequences, he recalls being in India in 1996 and learning that children in a number of villages had gone missing without a trace. It was clearly a watershed moment for him, and throughout the film he catches brief glimpses of a literal monster meant to evoke the uncaught perpetrator of those crimes. You know what they say about gazing too long into an abyss. Predators come in all forms, some more elusive — and telegenic — than others.