"Do you watch television? Well, there's something you should know. I'm Chris Hansen, with 'Dateline NBC.' And we're doing a story on adults who try to meet teens online."

Primetime is a new feature film directed by Lance Oppenheim. It is based on the investigative television show To Catch a Predator, which ran on NBC’s Dateline from 2004 to 2007. The film follows the events that led to the show’s closure and its removal from television.

Robert Pattinson’s Chris Hansen is, as some argue, one of the best performances of his career. From the opening scene, with him reciting the messages adult men send to the supposedly thirteen-year-old in an online chat, to his memorable first appearance under the camera lights, it’s made clear that the film's main focus is the moral complexities of Chris Hansen and his motivation behind “catching predators” on reality TV. The film explored his ambitious obsessive personality, leaving judgement to the audience if the antihero protagonist really cares more about “battling the evil” or keeping being on every American TV on Friday night.

Reality TV and Sensationalism

What I haven’t seen yet being talked much about is the film’s commentary on sensationalism of reality TV of 2000s. As I watched the film, I could not stop thinking about another show that aired at the same time - Keeping Up with the Kardashians (KUWTK).

The road to fame for Kardashian family was made through sensationalism¹: first there was that sex tape, and by the time the first episode of KUWTK was aired, everyone wanted to know what unhinged behaviour the family takes upon themselves and what else they are up to (pun intended). Kardashian understood that any attention is good attention, and built the multimillion empire running on sensationalism, becoming the blueprint for how celebrities use it to gain attention.

KUWTK was not the only show to use sensationalism to attract a larger audience. As I watched several episodes of To Catch a Predator, I realised that the show’s popularity stems from a primal human instinct to derive satisfaction from seeing bad guys punished and justice being established. That’s why we had public executions in the medieval ages, as Hansen says in the film: “There used to be a pillory in every village. Now, there’s a television in every living room.”

As the show's popularity grows and it gets the “primetime” slot, the movie asks how far sensationalism can go for entertainment, and when it becomes exploitative at its core.

[¹ Sensationalism is the use of shocking, exaggerated, or emotional language and subjects to grab people's attention, often sacrificing truth and accuracy.]

Chris Hansen and his team are searching for a bigger sensation and a whale to catch (that they find in Texas assistant district attorney Bill Conradt Jr.), to make the show a hit and keep the network executives happy. However, when “whale” does not agree to come to the decoy's house, the crew decides to take reality TV to the predators’ house with the police, search order and theatrics of US police “special operation”, which ends up in an attorney taking his own life. This led to the real show’s cancellation, due to ethical concerns and the blurred line of police investigation and reality TV.

Primetime depicts Hansen as a complex man doing a good thing with not such good intentions. He is both a hero who wants to expose predators publicly, but also an ambitious, superficial entertainer.

"Was this a news program, or was this a circus, with Chris Hansen as its ringleader? There’s something very carnivalesque about the whole operation, the way it mixed humor with the darkest expressions of human behavior."

- Lance Oppenheim director of Primetime

While the film comments on To Catch a Predator, reality TV, and ethical investigative journalism, it also - intentionally or not, extends empathy to predators (especially in humanising district attorney Bill Conradt). It’s worth remembering that, unfortunately, more often than not we see victims being blamed for the doings of the abuser, while predators and abusers, and may I say especially men in power, stay free, uncharged and unpunished.

The Verdict

The cinematography in Primetime perfectly depicts the grainy, campy feel of 2000s reality TV: from the hazy visuals of early digital impressionism to showing the film through multiple “hidden” cameras, to the final scene of the film with the screen divided into four, until all of them lose signal and turning blue which emphasised what Primetime excelled at: capturing that early anxiety and fear of the internet and the dangers it brings, alongside the growing fixation on sensationalism and public humiliation rituals in reality TV.

Similar to the show itself, To Catch a Predator, the film explores the darker side of the human soul: the legal pursuit of criminals, and its commercialisation for the sake of growing the audience. Thanks to great performances, the movie becomes a captivating watch, one that also questions your own stance on morality and what is considered human.