Primetime
★★Skip itIs Primetime worth watching? (No spoilers)
Robert Pattinson is perfect as Chris Hansen, and the main decoy is phenomenal. But the movie spends its first hour going nowhere, refuses to show the fallout of its biggest moment, and plays loose with the real story. It fails as both fiction and truth. Skip it.
⚠️ Spoiler warning: everything below the quick take, including the full review and ending explained, contains spoilers.
Primetime review
Primetime feels like a superhero origin story that saved all the good stuff for the cash grab sequel.
The show ends by portraying the famous suicide, and making a clear point that this was the end of everything. Yet it refuses to show the fallout or any of the aftermath, likely because the show continued on for another year in real life.
My main problem was that the first hour was interesting but went nowhere. We never really see a anything wrap up or anyone grow.
"But that's because this us real life"
Well thats what I was thinking too. But most of this film seems to be blurry at best. From the affair happening half a decade earlier to the complete fabrication of his prodigy and producer. And even worse the "catching" schemes being mostly unrealistic, the movie fails as both a work of fiction and a work of truth.
The only real win is the acting. The main decoy was phenomenal, but Robert Patterson (as always) was a step above. From the perfect voice, to the mannerisms , and everything in between he nailed the role.
Primetime ending explained
Chris Hansen and his producer chase a ratings-grabbing 'To Catch a Predator' sting on a Dallas-area district attorney, Bill Conradt. The raid on his home goes ahead with police and the show's crew outside. Conradt shoots himself, mirroring what happened in the real 2006 case.
Hansen stands stunned in the yard while his producer tries to save the moment for ratings, and the decoy actor, Dan, walks away. In the epilogue a year later, Dan gets his Screen Actors Guild card and looks conflicted about it, a career win that came about due to a man's death.
The film presents the suicide as the end of everything for the show, and leaves it to you to decide who the real villain is. However in real life the show carried on for almost a year afterwards.
My take: it refuses to show any of the fallout, which makes the ending feel like it saved the good stuff for a sequel.
Does Primetime have a post-credits scene?
No. Primetime has no mid-credits or post-credits scene.
Movies like Primetime
- Nightcrawler (2014) – TV news chasing ratings at any cost
- Network (1976) – the classic satire of television ratings
- Christine (2016) – a true story about TV news and an on-air tragedy