Sean Craig
Contributing Writer
“Primetime,” the new film directed by Lance Oppenheim, is a vivid and imaginative interpretation of Chris Hansen’s “To Catch a Predator” sting operations and television series. Released on Sept. 25, the movie captures Chris Hansen’s view of the predators he catches in explicit detail.
Robert Pattinson’s portrayal of Hansen was extraordinary to say the least. Pattinson makes Hansen out to be larger than life and driven to his singular purpose of confronting these predators.
Pattinson managed to recreate Hansen’s voice and mannerisms near perfectly to the point where it felt like I was watching just a more sophisticated episode of “To Catch a Predator.” He matches Hansen’s tenacity and drive for his work flawlessly.
Skyler Gisondo portrayed Dan Plum, who is a fictional character created for the movie, but is based on multiple real decoy actors from the show. Gisondo encapsulates the, previously unknown to me, emotions of one of those decoy actors.
Gisondo was one of the more engaging parts of the film. His acting prevented Pattinson’s star power from taking over the entire film. It was a refreshing presence that really rounded out the film.
However, despite these captivating performances, the overall techniques of the film made it a little confusing to get the main message across. I felt that the pacing was confusing at times and some scenes did not coherently transition to another.
The film’s cinematography was very interesting, switching from a very vivid film style to an older film style to reflect the hidden cameras used on the original show. I particularly enjoyed this choice. As a fan of the original show, I found this filming style to be great at certain storytelling aspects.
“Primetime” does a fantastic job at bringing the uncomfortable reality of the original show to a wider, new audience. People my age were born around the time of the show and may have no idea about the extent of Hansen’s investigations.
This movie gives those investigations a larger than life feel and brings attention to their importance through the highlighting of one particular investigation. According to Variety magazine, the movie takes a lot of inspiration from a 2009 article by Esquire titled “Tonight on ‘Dateline’ This Man Will Die.”
The article documents an episode of the show in which Louis William Conradt Jr., a former assistant district attorney in Murphy, Texas, died by suicide after being caught by a police sting in coordination with the “To Catch a Predator” team.
The film brings to light the events chronicled in this article in an incredibly fascinating way. It paints Hansen as almost an obsessive stalker who is desperately trying to catch Conradt Jr. which the film version of Hansen dubs his “whale.”
I believe that the “Predator” operations were incredibly important. Which leads me to wonder why Oppenheim decided to depict Hansen as almost an evil entity. Despite Pattinson’s astounding performance, he does portray him as very predatory in a very ironic way.
For fans of the original show this movie will be very entertaining but I believe, like myself, they would question Oppenheim’s true message that he was attempting to convey as it was unclear by the end of the film.