Lance Oppenheim’s narrative debut features a masterful turn from Robert Pattinson in a dark media satire about blurring the lines between journalism and exploitation. Primetime will fascinate and occasionally frustrate as a surface-level mood piece.
Robert Pattinson has been having one hell of a year on screen, with critically acclaimed turns in the excellent The Drama and Christopher Nolan’s box office juggernaut The Odyssey. Before heading to Arrakis in the concluding chapter of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three, he stars in what might be his most provocative outing of 2026.
He plays American TV journalist Chris Hansen, the former host of the show To Catch a Predator, in Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime. And while the film may perplex audiences, there’s no denying that Pattinson should by all rights be on his way to an Oscar nomination.
Inspired by the true story of Hansen and the show which ran as part of Dateline NBC from 2004 to 2007, Primetime shows how To Catch A Predator hired decoys to lure grown men to suburban homes where they expected to have sex with minors. Instead, they found Hansen, who was there with a full camera crew to confront them with their sordid online chat transcripts. Essentially, a series of staged sting operations which would conclude with the police arresting the would-be paedophiles.
Ratings for the show are huge, which leads Hansen to be summoned to the office of NBC, where a skeptical network president (Jeff Zucker, playing himself) bumps Hansen’s time slot to put the show in direct competition with the hit series Lost. Only promotion comes with expectation: the network demands that Hansen must deliver something big.
For his first narrative feature, Oppenheim – previously a documentary director – delivers a dark and surreal media satire which exposes the disturbingly fragile line between journalism and entertainment. This is embodied through Hansen, who sees himself as a righteous crusader. But he’s no saint. He’s a serial adulterer and can barely manage not to let his mask slip. A mask that hides deep-rooted insecurity (he’s clearly intimidated by Stone Phillips, the co-anchor of Dateline NBC) but also one which reveals that Hansen has a messiah complex, as he’s fooling himself into believing he’s “cleansing the world of an ancient evil”.
Pattinson excels here, being both suave and smarmy, a man convinced he’s a journalist but is in fact a self-obsessed TV star who is fixated on chasing ratings. The actor never goes full moustache-twirling villain, but effortlessly slips in an out of a psyche that is outwardly convinced that his show pursuing justice but inwardly, cripplingly fame addicted.
His performance (with spot-on mannerisms and vocal inflections) is buttressed by some brilliant performances, specifically from Merritt Wever as the show’s ruthless producer Andie Bender and Skyler Gisondo, who plays Dan Plum – a babyfaced and struggling actor whose lane is described as “hairless, nubile, boy-man.” The Rent-loving wannabe-thesp is hired by the show as a decoy, alongside Del (singer Phoebe Bridgers), who sees her role as a decoy as “a form of activism”. It’s Dan’s job to lure the predators into the house, and he accepts his bait role as his big break, a desperate means to get his Screen Actors’ Guild card.
“It’s more than acting – you’re saving children,” Chris tells Dan, who ends up playing a prominent role in attempting to lure “a whale” – a high profile target which ends up being a Texas district attorney. What follows – and shan’t be spoiled here – is a loose reenactment of actual events that took place during the filming of the show’s final episode, which eventually led to To Catch A Predator being cancelled.
As a cautionary tale on ambition and a damning portrait of American greed disguising itself behind layers of toxic sanctimony and corrupted righteousness, Primetime is thought-provoking. On top of that, it successfully sustains an uneasy, almost hypnotic atmosphere. Kudos here to DoP David Bolen, who creates an ominous aesthetic which combines hyper-stylised lighting and grainy digital cinematography that heightens the period and hallucinatory mood. However, Primetime never quite escapes being a queasy mood piece, with Ajon Singh’s screenplay never completely delivering on the promise of the material and ending up feeling a bit hollow – especially in the rushed third act.
To the film’s credit, it never holds the audience’s hand through spelled-out discussions on crossing ethical lines and dealing with moral ramifications. For that and a more detailed history of To Catch A Predator, seek out David Osit’s 2025 documentary Predators. As for Primetime, it doesn’t always delve as deep as it could have in terms of the characters or feel as immediately compelling as some of its genre neighbours – most memorably the Jake Gyllenhaal-led Nightcrawler, which also focused on the actions of a charismatic hustler who exposes his narcissism while blurring the lines between journalism and exploitation.
Thankfully, Primetime does get by on its fascinating performances, especially Pattinson’s. His take on Hansen highlights how To Catch A Predator was never about saving children; it was about ratings and performative justice. As frustrating as parts of the film may be, it does stand as another useful reminder to be mistrustful of the morally corrupt who claim to want to do good for the people but in reality perform for money, ratings, and to feed their own narcissism. Remind you of a hustler-turned-TV entertainer currently cosplaying as a moral crusader for the good old American way?
Primetime is out in cinemas now.
Source: www.euronews.com
