Nolan at the Movies: Take a Seat Over There - While I Review "Primetime"

By Nolan Cleary 

The buzz around "Primetime" - the recent movie biopic about Chris Hansen, the host of television's "To Catch a Predator" - is of a daring attempt to paint Hansen, who’s career has been defined by his attempts to track down and arrest child predators, in a negative light. 

The film has made headlines lately, after Hansen himself denounced the film as a "hit piece," intended to smear his reputation.

Yet, for every exciting punch that’s been thrown between Hansen and the production company A24, the truth about release of "Primetime" is a far more disheartening crime - the movie just isn’t very interesting. 

Directed by Lance Oppenheim, Primetime stars Robert Pattinson (of Twilight and Batman fame) in the lead role, following the rise and fall of Hansen’s now famous show on Dateline, where he dupes and snares unsuspecting pedophiles who seek to prey on young children with whom they interact online. 

Throughout the film, Hansen is "reimagined." He is shown not as the calm, quiet, and strategic journalist depicted on his NBC program, but as a ravenous, unhinged zealot on a mission from God, to rid the world of a horrific evil. 

Oppenheim, who comes from a documentary background, does his best to provide visual sustenance to what feels like an empty shell of a story.

His direction injects a raw, cynical, mockumentary-like quality into a production in desperate need of sincerity and candor. 

The screenplay from Ajon Singh does nothing to even hold its own weight.

As a film, Primetime bluffs on its own premise, failing to deliver on the haughtiness of its manufactured and publicity-hungry controversies. 

For all that has been alleged about the Primetime project, what is most alarming is how little this film has to add to a larger conversation.

The internal conflict demonstrated in the film is far from novel: A group of starry eyed dreamers push their intentions of success to their limits, ultimately leading to a conclusion that destroys everything they built up. This concept is neither new nor innovative. 

Robert Pattinson, in spite of his solid talent, is badly miscast as Hansen, possessing all the subtlety of an overactive and schizophrenic hyena. 

The basic dilemma of Primetime is seemingly intelligible enough: Where should the line be drawn between running a serious journalistic profession, and running a business? 

But with the film running at under two hours, it lacks the time and space to explore any of these themes with nuance, cramming every idea together in an unsatisfying mish-mash of jumbled ideas and messages.

To quote the real life Hansen when he confronts a foiled would-be pedophile who is whining about his innocent intentions, while the cameras roll, and police handcuff him, “You do see how this looks, right?”