★★★½ (3½ out of 4)
“You see how this looks, right?” A snarly, sensational Robert Pattinson speaks those needling words in the role of reality TV host Chris Hansen in “Primetime,” a hallucinatory hellscape of a film that hinges on Hansen’s role on “To Catch a Predator,” the NBC series that ran from 2006 to 2008. Hansen, armed with hidden cameras and support from the watchdog group Perverted-Justice who were paid to participate, would confront adult men arriving at a sting house to have sex with a minor, usually an adult impersonating underage targets in online chats. The men were often arrested. Don’t be shocked. What better judge could there be than a TV audience?
Gotcha, indeed. That’s when Hansen would pounce with his usual tagline, “Why don’t you take a seat over there?” followed by a reading of their perverse chatroom invitations. It’s just chat, says one predator, feigning innocence. And just listen as Pattinson breaks down Hansen’s response into words that cut like a scalpel: “It’s. Not. Just. Chat. Though. Is. It.”
In an early scene, NBC CEO Jeff Zucker (who plays himself—yikes!) gives the show a primetime spot. “I don’t really understand your show. I don’t like it. I don’t believe in it. But America loves it.” He was right. Congress issued a commendation. Everybody wins. At least that was the hope, until suspect William Conradt, the assistant district attorney for Rockwell Country, Texas, shot himself in the head as Team Predator approached. The incident was used and abused on the show, leading to its cancellation, though Hansen still produces his own variations.
If you want more of the mechanics of the series, try the 2025 documentary “Predators” from director David Osit, which makes the necessary legal distinctions between a sting operation and entrapment. “Primetime” is not a documentary, though it was directed by noted documentarian Lance Oppenheim (“Spermworld” and the upcoming groundbreaker about Elizabeth Holmes, “You Can See Everything”). “Primetime” is Oppenheim’s first narrative feature. So get clued in as the film swerves into the wild blue of fiction to create a fever dream of how it feels to be inside “To Catch a Predator” as America spins off its moral axis.
A hallucinatory hellscape of a film
Some say “Primetime” plays like a fright flick. Guilty as charged, though the daily bullet spray of digital headlines is much scarier. My advice? Follow Pattinson as he takes us on a journey into fresh circles of online hell. Working from a script by Ajon Singh, Oppenheim follows “Network,” Paddy Chayefsky’s still topical 1976 media satire, in which madmen thunder that nations and democracy are illusions and that corporations are the world’s true gods. Peter Finch’s news anchor enters as a prophet of rage and leaves as a prophet of corporate obedience. One essential difference now: it’s AI reality calling the shots.
Hansen’s producer, Andie Bender, played by the ever-astonishing Merritt Weaver—there’s no variety of sincerity she can’t fake— goes where the ratings take her and forgets the toll on the adult decoys (Skyler Gisondo and Phoebe Bridgers, both superb), who portray child sexual exploitation as a game of let’s pretend.
And through it all is Pattinson, having a career moment with “The Drama” and “The Odyssey,” and now this film that allow him to edge his character into mental collapse even as Hansen’s goal of topping his NBC news rival Stone Phillips with ratings that that will clobber early aughts mega-hit “Lost,” escalates into playing God and acting as judge and jury with no judicial approval. That’s as topical as the latest ICE outrage.
Oppenheim has described Pattinson's version of Hansen as a cross between Jerry Maguire and Dracula. Good call. Pattinson creeped me out big-time. And I mean that as high praise. In a poisonously potent performance, he twitches with morbid excitement with every civilized restraint stripped away: cruel, impulsive, and frighteningly delighted by the harm he causes. He truly is a monster for our time.
Naysayers claim that “Primetime” doesn’t take a minute to fully engage with the complex moral questions it raises. That’s true. I believe that in rejecting spoon-feeding audiences, the filmmakers do us the honor of leaving that engagement to us. Don’t fail to take advantage.
Hansen and his show ended up being parodied and laughed at on “The Simpsons.” It’s to the eternal credit of “Primetime” that it doesn’t leave us laughing. The movie is more like a cinematic premonition of dread to come. You see how this looks, right?