Primetime
How can ratings overshadow reason? That is exactly what Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime is about.
Primetime tells the story of the real-life 2000s TV show To Catch a Predator and its eccentric host, Chris Hansen. After getting a primetime slot on television, he and his team start trying to catch more predators and go bigger and flashier with their show. On the other side of the story, we follow Dan Plum, a young actor who dreams of joining SAG and is hired in a hurry as a decoy, where he has to pretend to be an underage kid and lure criminals in front of the camera. We watch the stories of the host, the actors, and the members of the crew unfold, and see where not always clearly defined intentions can lead within this TV show and television in general.
It was interesting for me to watch Primetime as a viewer from the outside, someone who did not grow up with American TV and did not know about the original show or, honestly, who Chris Hansen was in general. The story itself and the premise are pretty clear and obvious, and what happens on screen turns into a decent drama that, with a little stretch, can probably be called the psychological thriller it presents itself as. But from my perspective, it can be seen as more of a black comedy or social commentary.
The ambitions of Primetime are fairly modest. The film focuses on two things: how ego, selfishness, and the desire to be great can often overpower a person’s good intentions, and how the show-business machine often does not think about the consequences of the things it creates. But because the film does not dig too deeply into the psychology behind this kind of exposé television, while periodically spending time on the characters’ inner struggles and personal narratives, Primetime sometimes feels like it does not fully explore its potential. Considering that this is not a documentary but a fictional film, there was an opportunity to go deeper, broader, and somehow more epic with this story. We do not really get into the details of the root causes and consequences. Instead, we are watching a relatively small part of the story somewhere in the middle.
What was definitely one of the highlights of the film, though, was the acting.
Robert Pattinson, playing the eccentric, weird, and extremely strange-speaking Chris Hansen, was excellent, and nothing less was expected from one of the best working actors of our generation. The highlight for me was Skyler Gisondo, who played Dan Plum, the young actor used as the decoy. His naivety, desire to achieve something, and the trauma and shocking moments he experiences over such a short period of time are all reflected brilliantly in his character. So is the way people above him try to manipulate him for their own benefit because they need to make content. Phoebe Bridgers in her Nine Inch Nails t-shirt was also great, even though she was not on screen for long. Overall, watching people inside the film play characters while also playing characters within the film we are watching is genuinely interesting, and everyone did a really great job.
Ultimately, Primetime is a very worthy non-documentary feature debut for Lance Oppenheim. It is an interesting, brightly shot, distinctive film with great acting, a fairly simple story, and some thematic questions that are still very relevant in our modern culture. While it doesn't fully realize all the ambitions it could have had, it still becomes a very enjoyable piece of media to watch.
7.5/10
