REVIEW:
Primetime is okay. Not nearly as good as it might have been, but interesting enough. This is a movie about villains, where each “villain,” is barely on screen. And that’s exactly what the problem is. This is the movie that makes you realize, or reminds you that a villain is usually way more compelling and fun to watch than a hero. That’s because all we really have here is the story of the hero, and as it happens, it’s not enough.
Robert Patrick plays Chris Hansen, the host of this show, and we go behind the scenes to watch how the show was made throughout the movie. In fact, that’s the main component of this movie, with Hansen’s producer behind a major character.. We watch as Andie, the producer (played by Meritt Wever,) fields different offers from rival networks, and how she goes back and forth on whether or not to accept them.
There’s that story, and there’s the story of Chris Hansen cheating on his wife, and getting caught by the tabloids. And what gets lost in all of this is the story of him taking down predators. Now, that’s all over this movie, to be certain. But just not enough. We never really meet or spend time with any of the predators, and that’s a problem. It’s almost as if this movie was afraid to show us the villains.
So what we get here is a movie that’s kind of all over the place. There’s the story of Hansen, the story of his producer, and also the story of Decoy Dan, a guy who lures the predators in by acting like he’s a teenager. This is another character who might have had a compelling story, if only they showed us more of it. For example, Decoy Dan has a friend who he talks to on the phone quite a bit, but we never learn much about the friend. Is he a jealous actor, who is not getting the same work or success that Decoy Dan is, so now gives his buddy a hard time? It seems that way.
One thing that would have made this movie better, besides showing the villains more, would have been some deeper, more intellectual conversations about what the characters were doing. It would have been nice to see where the idea for the show came from, instead of just dropping us there, into the middle of it all. This movie had a lot going on. In fact, it had way too much going on. As a result, it didn’t take the time to narrow its focus and dig deep enough into anything.