By M.V. Moorhead
Robert Pattinson has had a busy year. After getting his wedding day ruined in The Drama and trying to kill Odysseus in The Odyssey, he’s now turning the hunt for sexual predators into big-time TV in Primetime.
As To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen, Pattinson gives a devasting portrait of a squirmy, desperately insecure man. His mannered, faux-stentorian voice and his handsome glower do little to conceal the character’s monumental vanity and self-deceit and feelings of inadequacy, at least from his co-workers on the show. To what extent it’s an accurate reflection of Hansen (or of the show) I can’t say, but it’s an instant classic performance.
Directed by rising filmmaker Lance Oppenheim (of the upcoming Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything) from a script by Ajon Singh (based on an Esquire story), the film chronicles the rise of TCAP to primetime status, and Hansen’s thirst for bigger, more dramatic stings, which ultimately leads to a chaotic fiasco in Texas. Pattinson is a star presence here, but others in the large cast also shine, especially Merritt Weaver as the troubled, neglected producer and Skyler Gisondo as a young aspiring actor who lands a job as a “decoy” on the show.
To Catch a Predator aired from 2004 until 2008, as an increasingly recurrent part of Dateline NBC. You probably remember it: Creepy dudes would show up at a house wired for sound and video, hoping to engage in sex with a minor. They would then be allowed to leave, usually to be arrested just outside by waiting cops.
Seeing this stomach-turning material processed into entertainment had a queasy “bread and circuses” feel, and it raised questions of journalistic and legal ethics. Thus Primetime, though excellently done in almost every way, almost can’t help but have an oppressive atmosphere. The distaste that many of us felt for the show bleeds over – in a much milder form, of course – to the film.
At the same time, it’s hard to shake the fact that the pathetic, whimpering targets of these stings were would-be sexual predators. TCAP‘s dreadful revelation was that the hundreds of guys ensnared by it had driven, often across multiple states, to walk into a stranger’s house, all on the chance that they might get to sexually violate a teenage kid. Every one of them that did it surely represented thousands of men who wanted to.
The ubiquity of that desire is disgusting and disheartening in its implications for children’s safety and society’s mental health. That’s why I’m not sure I care too much even if Primetime’s portrait of Hansen as an adulterous weasel – or of TCAP as an ugly, opportunistic carny – is accurate or not. Nobody had to watch it, after all, but if one predator, even one, was discouraged from trying to solicit an underaged kid, there had to be some value to the show.
Alongside Strictly Ballroom and Take the Lead and Silver Linings Playbook and Musical Chairs and both the Japanese and Yank versions of Shall We Dance? and a few other films comes Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, a new addition to the list of comedy-dramas about competitive ballroom dancing.
It’s not surprising, perhaps, that so many filmmakers have found that world irresistible – it has music, dancing, suspense and sexual tension built in, along with wild color and campiness. It’s like drag, without the political frictions.
Our heroine is Haru (Rinko Kikuchi), also known as Ha-Chan, a Tokyo woman energetically entering middle age. Haru has two great passions: her Mexican expat husband Luis (Alejandro Edda) and ballroom dancing, with Luis as her partner. Tragedy strikes, leaving her utterly bereft of both loves.
A year or so later, her friends drag her back to dance class, where she meets a new Latin instructor, Fedir (Alberto Guerra). Having a very distinctive taste in men, Haru is instantly smitten. Fedir is married, but public about the marriage being open. Haru quickly gets in way over her head emotionally.
The Japanese/Polish-American director and co-writer Josef Kubota Wladyka shows a nervy, almost Tarantino-esque style at times. Though often comical and rather sultry, Ha-Chan Shake Your Booty! has an intensity that transcends mere romcom energy.
This is reflected in, but also driven by, Kikuchi’s performance as the heroine. She’s particularly potent in the dance numbers, where her dramatic facial expressions suggest she’s being swept along by romantic and erotic forces outside her control, and not minding it a bit.
