Grit Chasing Grit

It is sometimes said that tearjerker film should be approached with proper equipment, as in a “three-hanky movie.” In the case of an artfully creepy film like Primetime, a few moist towelettes may be in order, to wipe away the residue of moral queasiness delivered by film’s end. The core subject, concerning sexual predators using the internet to do their bidding, is enough to rattle one’s faith in humanity: on a much milder but still evident level are subthemes of celebrity power-lust and the craven side of the reality TV phenomena and market.

Primetime tells the true story of the short-run but highly popular early ‘00s series “To 

Catch a Predator” as part of “NBC Dateline.” In the formula of the series, which suddenly gained high ratings in a pivotal period when standard fiction TV fare was staring to be overturned by new reality TV craze, host Chris Hansen (memorably played by Robert Pattinson) orchestrated elaborate shakedowns of online predators, culminating in “gotcha” busts in houses serving as trapping stations. He had the help of the pedophilia group “Perverted Justice” in the scheme.

Hansen’s ethical crusader zeal mixed with dark aspects of his own life, from his blind ambition to being subjected to secret scrutiny himself, of the National Enquirer kind.

Fittingly, the fuzzy crossover of fiction and fact relates to the film’s backdrop. Director Lance Oppenheim has worked mostly in the documentary field — including as part of the team, with co-director Nathan Fielder, of the much-buzzed about experimental doc You Can See Everything, coming this week to a screen near us. His evident probing eye and outsider approach to feature film protocols gives Primetime a unique texture, approaching this innately gritty story with a grainy visual style evocative of pre-HD TV’s look, which in turn reflects back on the thematic texture of the subject (and subjects).

After the up-and-down run of  “Predator,” from 2004 to 2007, Hansen subsequently went on to become a respected and Emmy-nabbing journalist on the worldly front lines as well as on the pulpy crime TV circuit. He was reportedly not consulted on the film and was none too pleased with the portrayal of him (a response logically expected from Mark Zuckerberg regarding the current Facebook-takedown saga Social Reckoning).

Lost and imperiled innocence is naturally a driving force in the dramatic baggage of the film, dealing with victims mostly in the 11-to-15 year-old range. A different strata of innocence becomes apparent in the critical subplot of young actor aspiring Daniel “Dan” Plum (played, brilliantly, by Skyler Gisondo), groomed as a principal young victim plant for would-be predators. 

Upset about the harsh realities of the real-world encounters he has to “perform in,” Plum is coached into this dubious offshoot of the acting trade by smooth-talking Hansen. He craftily bolsters the young actor’s sense of duty, saying “you can’t look at this like an acting gig” and insisting “you’re cleansing the world of an ancient evil.” And making a decent paycheck and earning his SAG card in the process.

A centerpiece of the film’s effectiveness is Pattinson’s strange, and strangely compelling, performance as Hansen. He manages to be handsome, cagey, Machiavellian, and driven by conflicting forces of power-lust and moral rectitude for the presumed good of humanity, as “the guy who catches the guys.”

Pattinson’s acting trajectory resembles that of his acting cohort Kristin Stewart in the chicly vampiric and career-launching Twilight series, after which both actors sought out more challenging and artistic roles. For Pattinson, that list included David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis and Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse, and now, walking a line between mainstream and art-adjacent cinema, in Primetime. He’s ready for it.

But are we ready for Primetime, without some distancing, “it’s-only-a-movie” escape route mentally at the ready? A chilling afterburn realization of the film is that it’s not only a movie.