THE OBVIOUS REFERENCE POINT for Primetime—Lance Oppenheim’s new film about the rise and fall of Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) and his NBC series To Catch a Predator—is Nightcrawler, Dan Gilroy’s chilling portrait of a new form of soulless news media chasing thrills and chills for cold hard cash.
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POINT → catch → cash
But as Oppenheim’s jarring feature crashes to its climax, my mind was drawn back to another, entirely different film: Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
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mind → crash → film
To set the scene without spoiling things altogether, this last sequence in Primetime takes place on a suspected predator’s lawn.
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sequence → set → lawn
The Dateline team and a Texas sheriff’s office have decided to take the fight to the suspect rather than trying to lure him to a rented home with hidden cameras set up.
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team → decide → cameras
The outcome will be shocking, and somewhat tragic, and, ultimately, the result of every sensationalistic impulse we’ve seen build up throughout this film, every corner cut and shenanigan pulled in the pursuit of getting ratings for NBC and accolades for Hansen.
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cut → see → Hansen
The sequence takes place at night, with bright lights set up all around casting harsh shadows on the lawn.
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sequence → take → lawn
And the score is all shrill notes, heightening the tension, increasing the drama.
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score → heighten → drama
As I was watching this—the culmination of tabloid journalism’s sensationalistic bloodlust all in the pursuit of nominally just ends—I couldn’t help but think of the Trinity test sequence in Nolan’s film.
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I → watch → film
At the very least, Ari Balouzian’s score for Primetime owes a tip of the homburg to Ludwig Göransson’s Oscar-winning work.
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score → owe → work
PRIMETIME FOLLOWS THREE PEOPLE as they navigate the world of television fame and fortune.
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they → follow → fame
Hansen is the first and most visible, obviously; the host of To Catch a Predator whose vocal mannerisms and firm-but-politely-condescending treatment of the pedophiles who show up to his stings have been the subject of fun since South Park spoofed him in 2007.
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Park → catch → 2007
He is racked with jealousy of Stone Phillips, hoping that this show and its placement on the primetime lineup across from Lost will earn him the respect he so desperately desires—all the while trying to keep his own secrets from coming to light.
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he → rack → light
Then there’s Hansen’s producer, Andie (Merritt Wever), who has built this whole empire with Hansen.
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who → ’ → Hansen
She’s the one arranging the shoots, she’s the one hiring the actors pretending to be the kids serving as bait for the titular predators of To Catch a Predator, the woman behind the throne trying to grab a piece of the success for herself even as she wonders what all this ickiness is doing to her soul.
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ickiness → ’ → soul
One of the actors hired by Andie is “Decoy” Dan (Skyler Gisondo), so nicknamed by Hansen as the anchor is trying to convince the young man he’s a superhero out making the world a safer place for kids rather than a desperate actor working on a skeezy reality show tricking pedophiles into humiliating themselves on camera.
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world → hire → camera
And this is one of the tensions at the heart of Primetime, the knowledge that, on some level, we all kinda-sorta agree that the dudes—and they’re all dudes, every single one of them—having their lives ruined on NBC really do have it coming because they are disgusting pedophiles; they have shown up to a home with the intent of having sexual relations with an underage person.
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they → agree → person
The question is less whether or not they deserve what is happening to them than whether we should degrade ourselves by delighting in their pain.
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we → deserve → pain
Whether the folks who program network television—like onetime NBC honcho Jeff Zucker who, for some reason, plays himself in this film—should degrade themselves by coming up with new and nastier ways to trick sickos looking for a fun time.
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who → program → time
Whether this should be fodder for ratings or something treated a little more seriously, by the actual authorities rather than trumped-up task forces leading cops by the nose to busts.
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this → treat → busts
PRIMETIME IS NOT A SUBTLE MOVIE in certain regards, with Pattinson’s Hansen saying things like, “At the end of the day, a man must be held accountable for the actions he takes” and, following the death that marks the end of the film, “What would have happened if I wasn’t here?”
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I → say → film
That last question in particular is a callback to earlier in the film, when he asks it of one of the caught predators who made sure to bring condoms.
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who → ask → condoms
To be completely honest, I don’t think the effort to reframe the morality of To Catch a Predator here is entirely successful; these are, after all, people looking to commit fairly heinous acts, and Chris Hansen being a philandering ratings hound maniacally obsessed with his own image doesn’t really change that.
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being → think → that
But there is one aspect of this whole dog-and-pony show that Primetime captures completely accurately, and that’s the modern fear of onscreen humiliation being a fate worse than death.
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humiliation → be → death
Quite literally, in the case of the first perp, who offers up that he might face the electric chair for what he’s done but only truly breaks down when the NBC cameras show up, begging and pleading not to have this shown on television.
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this → offer → television
“Don’t you ever just want to . . . bleed ’em?” an airplane seatmate played, to unsettling effect, by The Office’s Creed Bratton, asks Hansen at one point early on.
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seatmate → want → point
“Maybe what I do is a little worse,” he replies.
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he → reply → what
The ugliness of it all is unrelenting and terribly tense, though it is leavened somewhat by a gonzo performance from Pattinson that has to make him an instant frontrunner for a best actor nomination, at least.
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him → leaven → nomination
The Oscars often like to reward the most acting, and no one is going to do more acting in a film than Pattinson this year.
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one → like → Pattinson
The sick little found family formed by Hansen, Andie, and “Decoy” Dan is one of the odder grace notes of the year, and the three of them complement each other perfectly.
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three → find → other
Gisondo’s naïveté in particular feels heartbreakingly real; between this, Licorice Pizza, The Righteous Gemstones, and Superman, he really is one of our more interesting young actors.
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he → feel → actors
The Aporia
