The long-awaited movie, Primetime starring Robert Pattinson, has recently hit the cinemas. Is it worth the watch? Let’s talk about it.
Primetime highlights the career of Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson), particularly his time as host of 2006 show To Catch a Predator. Based on true events, we see Chris set out to catch child predators before exposing them on TV. In a fight to gain the primetime spot, the producers and host will do anything to come out on top. However, when a high-profile situation presents itself, will it go fatally wrong?
Let’s start with the positives. The colour grading, camera angles, and the aesthetic is incredibly pleasing to the eye. The artistic style is beautiful and perfectly captures the tension of the story. The performances from the actors, especially from Pattinson and Skylar Gisondo (decoy Dan) were also exceptional and made the film into what it is.
Unfortunately, when telling the story of a real person’s life, it seemed to have accuracy issues. There were scenes within the movie that portrayed the real life Chris Hansen as the villain. By doing this, it is suggesting that Chris’ downfalls are comparable to those who featured on his TV show – which is a slippery slope to fall down. When watching, it almost feels like a mockery to the victims of the predators that Hansen was trying to expose. The real Chris Hansen has been quoted to say;
It was so bizarre and so in-and-out of reality. Obviously, I’m not objective because the character is, you know, me, but it was so detached from reality or anything I’ve experienced then or now doing the investigations. I’m not sure what the point of it was. – Chris Hansen on Primetime the movie.
The movie has its good and bad moments. The audience seem to be enjoying the story as it has an average of 4 stars on Letterboxd with over 350,000 film buffs rating it as such. Director Lance Oppenheim did a fantastic job in terms of cast and aesthetics, but can you rely on it’s accuracy?
You can see for yourself as it is now out at your local cinema!
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