Primetime: exciting thriller about the excesses of trash TV (review)

Led by a brilliantly awkward Robert Pattinson, Lance Oppenheim’s film explores the murky behind-the-scenes of the American show To Catch A Predator.

What a strange film. Original, dense, exciting. Produced and performed by Robert Pattinson, Primetime is directed by Lance Oppenheim, in his thirties, a little genius from documentary (Some Kind of Heaven, Spermworld, Ren Faire…), which for its first fiction offers a dive into the back room, frankly not very shiny, of the show To Catch A Predatora big hit on US TV in the 2000s, on NBC, the principle of which was to trap child criminals. They were lured by “bait” (actors posing as minors) to houses which were in fact peppered with cameras, and where the presenter Chris Hansen appeared at the fateful moment – ​​just before the victim was attacked – who caught the predator in the act, interviewed him, then let the police handcuff him…