OVERVIEW
Originally a recurring segment on Dateline NBC, To Catch a Predator became a television phenomenon in the final years before YouTube, growing into one of the network’s biggest draws and confronting more than 250 men before ending in 2007. Audiences would tune in to watch pedophiles being caught in the act, but also for its host, Chris Hansen, who became a pop culture figure almost as central to the show as the investigations themselves, through his entrances and phrases such as “Why don’t you have a seat?” and “You know how this looks.” In Primetime, Robert Pattinson plays Hansen, and we follow him through the peak of the show’s success, when NBC believed the segment had become big enough to compete with some of the most popular shows on television, until the controversy that would eventually bring it to a sudden end.
BACKGROUND
Primetime marked the narrative-feature debut of young documentarian Lance Oppenheim. Oppenheim had been fascinated by Chris Hansen since childhood, and in 2024 his wife bought him a $30 Cameo from Hansen to celebrate the release of Spermworld. Not long after, while meeting Robert Pattinson about another project, Oppenheim showed him the video. Coincidentally, Pattinson was already producing Ajon Singh’s script for Primetime, based on Luke Dittrich’s 2007 Esquire article “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die,” and his producing partner soon sent Oppenheim the script. Pattinson initially had no intention of playing Hansen, but eventually took the role himself, studying Hansen’s television appearances, interviews, and podcasts while building a heightened version of his public persona.
THE REVIEW
Primetime is more focused on creatively recreating the events than on contextualizing and studying them, which is curious coming from a filmmaker with Lance Oppenheim’s documentary background. It leans on pre-existing knowledge not only of Chris Hansen and his series, but also of the cultural zeitgeist surrounding both at the time. You can watch Network more than 50 years after its release and come away understanding how television worked, what it represented, and why it held such power over society. In comparison, Primetime updates many of its themes but remains strangely incurious about the culture surrounding its own story. Recognition often seems to be the goal, leaving the film with the depth of a greatest-hits musical biopic rather than the complex study of media and its impact on society found in Sidney Lumet’s classic, which remains the bar for practically any film about television and the media.
Its best ingredient is unsurprisingly Robert Pattinson, who continues to up his game with every performance. He captures Hansen’s voice, mannerisms, and body movements without allowing the mimicry to become the entire performance, playing him as someone impatient and seemingly ready to crack at any point. The script hints at his darker side, particularly in an airplane scene where Hansen lets slip the pleasure he feels in humiliating the men he catches. He is also extremely funny, especially when he goes big with exaggerated faces and movements. There are moments where it risks feeling a little too broad, but it remains an impressive performance.
The film is far less interesting when it stops caring about Hansen. After a promising start, Pattinson gradually moves into the background as the film gives similar attention to Merritt Wever’s ratings-hungry producer Andie Bender and Dan Plumb (Skyler Gisondo), an aspiring actor hired to play one of the show’s underage decoys. Both subplots have interesting and complementary things to say, from Bender treating human misery as simply another piece of material to manage, package, and turn into ratings, to the undeniable parallel between Plumb’s own exploitation and the children the series claims to protect. But both points would have felt smarter if presented in half as many scenes. Meanwhile, some of the more interesting details surrounding Hansen, like the way he rehearses his confrontations or a monologue about what he considers evil, are cut short just as they begin to open him up. The film also seems scared to confront the problem of turning its audience into a real-time jury for obvious criminals, then playing that judgment for spectacle.
If Oppenheim struggles with narrative focus and pacing, he succeeds much better with the look and atmosphere of the film, shooting it almost as a thriller, with occasional POV shots that make it feel as though Hansen himself is always being watched. David Bolen’s grainy, heavily saturated cinematography gives the film an appropriately early 2000s texture, capturing something of what television looked and felt like before every living room had a 65-inch screen. Combined with Ari Balouzian’s score and the constant presence of hidden cameras, monitors, and staged suburban spaces, the film can be wonderfully uneasy.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Pattinson remains the reason to watch Primetime, far outshining the script by bringing subtlety and unpredictability to his portrayal of Chris Hansen. It remains, unfortunately, a great performance stuck in a simply okay film, well shot and enjoyable in moments, but shallow underneath and scared of truly challenging its audience. Like one of the film’s final images, which divides the screen into four, Primetime looks in several interesting directions at once without giving any of them the focus they deserve.
- Where to watch
- Coming soon
- Where to watch
- Coming soon
Play trailer
- Original title
- Primetime
- Director
- Lance Oppenheim
- Cast
- Robert Pattinson, Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers, Matthew Maher, Bokeem Woodbine, Michael Chachere, Alex Winter
- Rated
- 14A
- Screenwriter
- Ajon Singh
- Composer
- Ari Balouzian
- Cinematography
- David Bolen
- Editor
- Daniel Garber
- Country
- Language
- English