August Moon and Reid Kellermann | Staff Illustrators

A gentle, pulsing red “recording” overlay is the only sign preceding the quiet but earth-shattering footsteps in the cold open of director Lance Oppenheim’s suave and propulsive new film “Primetime.” Those strides belong to Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson), host of the real-life hit true-crime series “To Catch a Predator,” while he is on his way to confront one of the titular pedophilic fiends who had fallen for the show’s sting operation. But despite Pattinson’s magnetic turn as the boastful, calculating, and narcissistic Hansen, the superficial storytelling in “Primetime” prevents the movie from rising from entertaining to excellent.

As the film begins, Hansen and his producer Andie Bender (Merritt Wever) must quickly raise the stakes to boost ratings of “To Catch a Predator” after the series is promoted to the primetime spot of NBC’s nightly programming. But Hansen’s infidelity, unpredictability, and a new “decoy” (Skyler Gisondo) — the adult actor playing a child who meets with the predators — have thrown the show’s production into chaos.

Editor Daniel Garber pushes the audience through “Primetime” at an electric pace that keeps Hansen’s quest to become the top-rated television series on the air enrapturing in a way that makes the film feel far faster than its 110-minute runtime. Despite Garber’s and cinematographer David Bolen’s best attempts to present a beautifully composed cut drenched with neon washes, their craftsmanship can only go so far when the emotional core of the story is missing.

Pattinson as Hansen, more Lex Luthor than Clark Kent in all his self-aggrandizing unmoored-ness, insists “nothing I do is acting” when all of his actions are laughably performative. As Hansen, he makes this driving yet surprisingly funny thriller worth checking out for the thrill of the chase alone, but audiences looking for richly drawn characters or explicit answers to the sensationalist questions of “Primetime” will be left wanting more.