Robert Pattinson Is Disturbing and Alluring in Primetime, a Sordid Movie About a Sordid TV Show

Robert Pattinson in Primetime —Courtesy of A24 In the early 2000s, if your idea of a cheap thrill was to see presumed sicko pedophiles caught on camera as they advance upon their ostensibly underage prey, NBC’s To Catch a Predator was your show.

The host, Chris Hansen, had once been considered a serious journalist, spearheading investigative reports on events like the Columbine shootings and the World Trade Center attacks.

But on the sleazy, sensationalistic To Catch a Predator, he was more of a vigilante showman.

The show worked like this: A crusading organization called Perverted Justice would initiate conversations in online chatrooms designed to attract potential sex offenders.

Then they’d be lured to sting houses outfitted with hidden cameras, where Hansen and his crew would await their arrival, ready to enact a pruriently dramatic Gotcha! moment, generally followed by an arrest.

Nobody likes a pedophile, and without leaving the Barcalounger, viewers could revel in the self-congratulatory certainty that they too were helping to keep the world safe for the kiddos.

Documentary filmmaker Lance Oppenheim’s first fiction feature Primetime —premiering here at the Venice Film Festival —fills in some background pixels on the show’s rise and fall, focusing particularly on an ambitious, egotistical, and at least somewhat delusional Hansen, played by Robert Pattinson .

It’s 2006, and Hansen and his beleaguered producer Andie ( Merritt Wever , bringing an edgy nervousness to the role of a woman struggling to stay afloat in the ruthless world of TV news) get a chance to move their show into a primetime slot.

The stakes are high, but the potential rewards are great.

Hansen’s hubris balloons, and he infects others with his own inflated sense of the public service he claims to be providing.

To complete its mission of reeling in the bad guys, the show employs youthful-looking decoys posing as underage kids.

One of these is an elflike performer named Del (singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers ) who can impersonate either a boy or a girl; she passes some tips along to a nervous newcomer who will come to be known as Decoy Dan (Skyler Gisondo, in a performance laced with touching eagerness).

Though he hopes to become a real actor and thinks this is his way in, he wants to quit when he sees how demeaning the gig actually is.

But Hansen, with his crocodile smile and purring, almost sultry intonation, persuades him to stick with it, assuring him that he’ll be helping to cleanse the world of evil.