Ty Watches "Primetime"

I have just returned to my home from the movie "Primetime" and I have some thoughts. This is going to be a spoiler free review. It is also going to be shorter than most of my reviews. I wanted to do a quicker, kind of gut reaction type review for you all today.

"Primetime" came to me later than most. I had heard that there was going to be a movie centered around Chris Hansen and his tv show, "To Catch a Predator". But I kind of dismissed it. Then RD kept talking about it. Then I saw the teaser trailer. Then I saw a full trailer last week when I went to see "Resident Evil", and I was all in. I have become a big time Robert Pattison fan over the years, so him starring in yet another A24 movie was more than enough for me. Add in the fact that Lance Oppenheim was directing, and that made it even more enticing. Now, when "To Catch A Predator" was first on tv, I did not watch. I believe my folks had the show on in the house, yes I was still living with my parents back then, back I just saw it in passing. So, this was kind of like a history lesson for me, just a fictionalized version.

"Primetime" is a very well made and extremely well acted movie. I really liked what I saw today. The story was way different from what I was expecting going in, and that is a very good thing. It was nice to go in with fresh eyes in my case. Robert Pattison is as good as everyone is saying he is in this role. He became Chris Hansen, but played him with this quiet and unnerving obsessiveness. He was clearly a person who had a vision and was going to see it through, come hell or high water. Pattison embodied this. Watching him terrified me at times. Other times I'd roll my eyes at how nonsensical his ideas were in this movie. Some compared this performance to what Jake Gyllenhall did in "Nightcrawler", and that feels right to me.  Pattison is great.

Sklyer Gisondo is up to the task as well. He plays naive and easy to manipulate wonderfully in this movie. He let himself fall into Hansen's trance and Gisonso nailed it. I actually felt bad for him, and I think that was the goal.

Merritt Wever is amazing. I felt like her performance should be talked about as much as Pattinson's. She is amazing in this role. She is cold and calculated. When she starts to get forgotten or passed by, I found myself rooting for her to win in the end. I loved the stuff she did when she was talking to Gisondo's character when they first meet. It is a transformative performance from one of the most underrated actors right now. Wever is so, so good in this role.

What made me love this movie was the visuals and the story. The movie looks so cool and feels like classic A24. It may sound weird to say "classic A24", but this had that feel for me. The colors were super cool that they used as well. As for the story, like I said above, it was different from what I expected going in. I liked that the movie kind of faked me out. It made me look at this whole world in a totally different direction than I went in with. I thought they showed the good and the bad very well. This movie does not hold back from anything, and that made it even more watchable. It doesn't take a side either, letting the viewer dictate what they want out of it, which is always good for me.

I recommend this movie. It has some tough to watch scenes, but that comes with the territory. But I say, for Pattison and Wever's performances alone, this movie is definitely worth your time and money. There's some really good stuff to see. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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