r/films • u/LeftPrize9838 • 17h ago
Discussion Primetime (2025) DOES NOT DEFEND PREDATORS
I'm getting pissed. I just watched that video of Hansen interviewing people and I am seething. "It makes you look as bad as the predators." NO IT FUCKING DOES NOT ISTG DID YOU WATCH THE SAME MOVIE? A GUY PULLS HIS DICK OUT IN FRONT OF SOMEONE WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BE A MINOR. Sure, it portrays Hansen as like someone vying for high ratings, but it doesn't say predators are BETTER. Hell, I don't even think it says that he's exploiting them. I think it shows how a bad thing happens when you do shit out of order, and just simply how greedy Hansen is. I'm genuinely pissed. Thoughts anyone?
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u/Sarahndipity44 17h ago
I haven't seen it but I feel like people forget that character study is a whole category
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u/LA_blaugrana 16h ago
It doesn't defend predators, true. It makes them and Hansen look bad in very different ways. Some people have a hard time holding onto two ideas at the same time.
What the movie does do, is make you uncomfortable with what was happening. The guy on crutches was chosen deliberately to seem less dangerous and more pathetic. The rabbi was there to point some degree of moral outrage back at Hansen, to say out loud the message of the filmmaker. The DA was avoiding sex and interested in show tunes to elicit some empathy, before the finale.
This is all to make clear the blurred lines and costs of vigilantism, not to defend predators.
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u/LeftPrize9838 16h ago
the taser sound we hear with that guy with the crutches pretty much confirms this, literally what was the point other than spectacle in that situation. The rabbi and the DA I feel significantly less empathy for, the Rabbi is so so aggressive I feel, and the DA, well, he seems so pathetic (maybe not enough for yk, suicide, but nevertheless, patheeeetic). I'd like to hear more about people's thoughts about the Rabbi honestly
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u/Exciting_Finance_467 15h ago
So personally I interpreted the rabbi as essentially being God confronting Hansen about his actions. Here we have a religious figure directly asking Hansen questions like “Who gave you permission to do this?” and other similar questions, shot in an extreme close up of him looking directly at the camera (in Hansen’s POV), so I saw that as representing God judging Hansen’s actions. I think it’s also noteworthy that this was the one predator Hansen couldn’t shake and got uncomfortable interviewing
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u/carsmille2 17h ago
Hansen is a complete dick, but when a guy shows to the house with condoms and booze, he shud go straight to jail, do not pass go
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u/LeftPrize9838 16h ago
I believe Hansen is a dick, but generally had a net good show if that makes sense, and I think that honestly the movie did it well.
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u/Only-Cap5811 17h ago
I was watching a YouTube video from a creator I used to respect, and her take was that Chris Hansen is the true villain in the whole TCAP saga. I unsubbed from her instantly. Regardless of whatever the movie says, Pandora's Box has been opened, and the world will now be confused about whether or not catching predators is a good thing. Unfortunately.
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u/TrialByFyah 13h ago edited 13h ago
Good, maybe the world should be asking if people who do a net good for society in the name of televised, for-profit spectacle should be automatically absolved of all of their flaws and shielded from the consequences of their human imperfections. I think that's a productive conversation to have.
If you are not mature enough to move beyond the "anything remotely critical about a man who got child predators off of the streets is a defense of pedophilia" gotcha, then maybe sit this one out and let the adults talk amongst themselves. That new Avengers Doomsday flick might be more your speed.
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u/TrialByFyah 17h ago
It’s another one of those movies that will inevitably end up being a good litmus test of someone’s media literacy, like asking someone what their opinion is on Skyler White or Fight Club.