“To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen is being brought back in the spotlight after the release of “Primetime,” a psychological thriller based on the show and produced by A24.
This suspenseful and riveting film directed by Lance Oppenheim follows Hansen (Robert Pattinson) and his crew, who work together to capture and humiliate adult men talking to children online.
The events in the film are based on the Dateline show and the now-archived Esquire article “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die.” Since the Internet becomes more advanced by the day, this film can reveal warning signs to viewers that they never noticed before.
“I feel like these past couple years, we’ve been overloaded with these blockbuster Avenger movies,” said OH senior Emma Harter,. “We’re all sick of it, and because of that our tastes have shifted towards these unusual movies.”
“Primetime” is set in 2006, when Chris Hansen’s show was set to play every Thursday at 9 pm on NBC, the prime time for television. The main focus of the film is the crew trying to keep viewers watching by hunting down more and more predators, one of them being a huge figure in government.
Pattinson plays a perfect Hansen, with a very accurate voice impression and unsettling aura. This was definitely a huge stand-out in the film, but audience members seem to either think he was portrayed perfectly, or that his image was interpreted wrong.
OH senior Adelaide Gresholdt agreed with me. “I thought [Pattinson] did incredible, especially with his voice and mannerisms,” Gresholdt said. ”You could tell even if [his character] didn’t want it to be shown, he was really affected by everything happening.”
Other outstanding performances supported Pattinson in the film, like Skyler Gisondo and Phoebe Bridgers as decoys Dan Plum and Del Harvey, and Merritt Wever as producer Andie Bender. While many characters were true-to-life like Pattinson’s, Wever’s character was created for the sake of the movie.
Though the acting makes viewers feel a lot of emotion, a huge factor that created tension was the visual effects. The movie uses a number of unique practical techniques and lighting that connect to the scenes’ events. A high-contrasting blue color is frequently used alongside multiple camera angles. At some points the quality becomes staticky, like you’re looking through a CRT screen.
“My favorite part of the movie was definitely the lighting,” Harter said. “It made things super creepy and unsettling.”
These effects added a lot of depth, making scenes more memorable and helping create the emotional picture.
Another important aspect is the soundtrack, using multiple genres to play with the feelings and show the shifts between scenes. The music ranges from jazzy, to emotional, to straight-up uncomfortable and murky. Indie artist Phoebe Bridgers, who was an actress in the film, included a song she wrote for “Primetime” in the end credits: “On Video.”
“That was my favorite part, and it’s the thing I still keep thinking about,” Gresholdt said. “It made you feel more scared.”
“Primetime” is a whirlwind of a project, showing the positive and negative sides of investigative journalism, while also connecting to the roots of modern age internet culture and how “To Catch a Predator” inspired online public shaming content.
“Primetime” is currently playing at Classic Cinemas.
