Primetime

Why don’t you have a seat right over there while I review this movie?

I think it’s a good thing that Robert Pattinson has completely shed the long-gone image of his Twilight days, and he’s finally being taken seriously as an actor. He seems to be on a similar trajectory as Leonardo DiCaprio, and he’s better off for it.

Pattinson fully commands the screen in Primetime, an edgy, suspenseful, darkly funny and even insightful view into the world of Chris Hansen, the notorious journalist who had a no-nonsense approach to catching child predators and making them infamous across the country on national television.

The movie takes place in 2006 as To Catch a Predator on Dateline NBC becomes a national sensation. It showcases the series’ production in documentary style as sting operations are set up to apprehend the predators. Pattinson plays Hansen, who appears on television with a calm, cool demeanor as the guilty see the errors of their ways.

The executives at NBC can’t understand why the show is such a massive hit, but they decide to see if it can compete with some of the biggest shows on the air in primetime, such as Lost, and it goes over without a hitch.

Coming up…

Skyler Gisondo co-stars as Dan Plum, an aspiring young actor hired to be part of the sting operations, hoping it will land him his card to join the Screen Actors Guild. He studies Billy Bob Thornton, inspired by how he created the character of Karl in Sling Blade.

When my review returns…

Hansen’s personal life takes a toll after the National Enquirer threatens to publish a story about an extramarital affair he has, which throws his career in jeopardy. Merritt Wever portrays Andie Bender, Hansen’s producer who values ratings over everything else, even at the expense of Hansen’s turmoil.

Pattinson portrays Hansen as a man who is consistently on the edge in his philosophy about what he does for a living, and the structure of “why” is thrown in for good measure. The movie makes a case for examining whether the ends always justify the means.

Primetime walks a tightrope on how and why such extreme measures are taken to stop child predators, and thankfully it doesn’t exactly sensationalize its lurid subject matter, nor does it hold back on presenting a soupy morality.

Primetime is just as uncompromising and unflattering as the individuals on both sides of the spectrum, and that’s a great thing.