Movie Review - Primetime

Well, would you look at that. A24 and Robert Pattinson, together again, be still my nauseous little heart. I saw those two names slapped together on a poster and thought, “Oh good, my old friend nausea, right on schedule.” Because nothing says fun night out like a studio I’ve spent over a decade fighting with, teaming up with the one actor who’s owed me a shower since he crawled out of The Lighthouse covered in seagull guilt and Willem Dafoe’s cologne.

So let’s talk about Chris Hansen. Sorry, I mean Pattinson-playing-Chris-Hansen, television’s most beloved amateur predator wrangler, now reimagined as a prestige drama for people who thought To Catch a Predator just needed better lighting and an Oscar campaign. Pattinson suits up, turns on the intensity, and gives us a performance that is, fine, genuinely good. I hate that for him. I hate that for me. I went in already side-eyeing the man and left with my side-eye fully validated, though I genuinely cannot tell you anymore if that’s the movie’s fault or just years of unresolved Lighthouse trauma talking.

7:42●●● 95%

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Let’s discuss Andie Bender, Hansen’s producer, played by Merritt Wever, who apparently signed a contract requiring her to chew a single piece of gum in every scene of the entire film. Bold choice. Very “character work.” I spent the whole movie mentally drafting a hostage negotiation to get that gum out of her mouth. Someone give this woman a breath mint and a restraining order from her own jaw.

Thankfully, we were blessed with Skyler Gisondo as Dan the decoy, doing the actual acting while everyone else was busy having Big Important Feelings about ratings and justice and whatever. I’ve loved him since Santa Clarita Diet, and he remains the one person in this movie I didn’t want to fight.

As for the story — a journalist discovers that turning real predators into television content is good for ratings and bad for his soul, shocking absolutely no one who has ever turned on a television. It’s dark, it’s “based on true events,” it wants very badly to be Network or Nightcrawler, and it mostly succeeds at making me feel like I needed to bleach my own skin afterward. Which, to be fair, might have been the point. Congratulations, movie, you made me feel complicit in 2006’s worst television programming decisions. Achievement unlocked.

So here I am, once again, A24, on the fence, questioning my life choices and possibly my taste in men who play unsettling roles. Add it to the pile.

Grade: C

Plot

In 2006, To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen sets out to make television history.