The largely uneventful wanna-be Polish thriller Prime Time portends to be an inditement of the modern addiction to online attention, achieved so easily through social media platforms and their endless call to share, but as a narrative feature, it largely fails to stir up much storytelling juice to serve that purpose.

The debut feature film from Jakub Piątek follows Sebastian (Bartosz Bielenia, Corpus Christi), a jaded rebel who holds up a Warsaw television station in the hopes of going live on air. He says he wants to get out an important message but like the film itself, he is so withholding with his purpose as to lose it altogether.

Sebastian has no idea what he wants to say, this much is clear. Director Jakub Piątek, who co-wrote the screenplay with Łukasz Czapski, on the other hand, very much knows what he wants to say. Like the stuttering antagonistic anti-hero at the center of the action though, Piątek stammers the delivery.

It’s New Years Eve 1999 and the clock is ticking closer to the new millennium. Y2K poses a threat that’s silly in retrospect; how harmless it ultimately was, how much hubbub caused over such an empty threat. Sebastian is, in essence, Y2K. He’s a millennial with a gun, two hostages, and a screaming need for the spotlight.

Prime Time finds some energy exploring what appears to be either the complete incompetence or utter indifference of the forces sent to respond to the hostage situation. There’s a revolving door of inept negotiators, heavily armed police responders chomping at the bit to knock down doors and blow heads off, television network department heads without either the skill or authority to actually fulfill Sebastian’s demands of being broadcast live to the entire country. But the darkly comedic clumsiness of just about everyone in the feature can only propel things so far.

As Prime Time attempts to unravel who Sebastian is and what he wants, Bielenia proves ever-watchable, the saving grace of what otherwise quickly becomes a bit of a repetitive slog. His performance is overwhelmed by id; the desire to be seen, to be heard, to air dirty laundry, to decry a bad father. Bielenia jostles between wild-eyed unpredictability and remarkable calm, remaining throughout a sympathetic character, even, eventually, to those he has taken at gunpoint.

But it’s all in service of a movie that plays everything too close to the vest; that, like the ostensibly antisocial Sebastian, is withholding to a fault. The intent is clear but too much else is opaque, which is all well and good when it comes to bullet proof glass, but not so in a character-driven thriller.

CONCLUSION: Jakub Piątek’s attempt to unravel the modern obsession with broadcasting our private lives through the lens of Y2K features a solid performance from Bartosz Bielenia but cannot stir up enough twisty plot momentum to engage on a deeper level.