Pictures and Projections

Editor’s note

I wanted to review “Primetime” sooner than this, but September was not a prime time for me to do so. It’s now been a month since the flick was actually released, but in that time, it’s only grown in my estimation. If you haven’t seen it, I hope this will be a good reminder of its existence, and a convincing argument for checking it out. It’s been long enough that its VOD release date has been announced: Nov. 3, 2026. If you missed it in theaters, I hope you enjoy it at home.

“Primetime” review

“To Catch A Predator,” the notorious reality show about finding internet pedophiles online and confronting them on camera, aired on Dateline NBC from Nov. 11, 2004, to Dec. 28, 2007. Though it spanned a scant 20 episodes, “Predator” has endured in pop culture memory for 20 years, generating memes, powering media ethics classes, and inspiring two recent films: “Predators,” a 2025 documentary directed by David Osit, and “Primetime,” a black comedy biopic directed by Lance Oppenheim, starring Robert Pattinson as “Predator” host Chris Hansen.

Oppenheim made his name as a documentarian, directing oddball character studies like “Spermworld” and “Ren Faire.” Those projects continue to be his primary vocation (perhaps you recognize his name from a little movie called “You Can See Everything”), but “Primetime” is his first foray into feature filmmaking. We’re all the better for it, because he is a major talent. Oppenheim has a brilliant eye for detail, mining meaning from his subjects’ smallest facial expressions and most unassuming accoutrement, as well as a terrific visual sensibility, usually brought to life with sumptuous cinematography by frequent collaborator David Bolen.

For this venture, Bolen and Oppenheim dial up their capacity for visual splendor to a kaleidoscopic degree. Bolen used 12 different camera formats to shoot “Primetime,” ranging from crunchy, surveillance-style footage to milky, glossy pools of light, like Ingrid Bergman or Katharine Hepburn just stepped off-screen. As the film goes on, and Hansen and his compatriots become more and more ethically dubious, those bright lights turn darker and bluer, like a slow descent into a malignant night. It’s a great device, and the perfect example of Oppenheim’s filmmaking acuity.

My favorite sequence from the blue-and-black end of the film comes during a rainstorm. Pattinson sits in a turquoise-tinted room, captured behind glass as rain distorts the details of his face. It’s one of the most evocative images of the year.

Though “Primetime” is stylish and dramatized, Oppenheim’s documentary roots show. “Primetime” is like a cousin of a doc, insofar as it explores the blurred line between fact and fiction, innocence and guilt, investigative journalism and criminal entrapment. It is truthful, even if it’s not nonfiction.

“To Catch A Predator” was exploitation presented as entertainment, schlocky cynicism disguised as journalism. The lured men on the program were ostensibly there for lurid, errant, and abhorrent reasons. They arrive, however, without having committed a crime. Instead, the subjects on the show are met with a kangaroo court: Chris Hansen, a plate of cookies, and one of the most traumatic moments of their lives immortalized on camera. Often, they were arrested or accosted by police. But how much did the show actually help society, rather than hurt damaged people? “Primetime” makes it clear that Hansen and his team were often prodding, prying, and manipulating responses out of the men they attracted, begging more than a few ethical questions about mental health, intent, and culpability.

Who are the predators? The men “caught” by Hansen and company, or the fame-hungry entertainers who “catch” them? That’s what “Primetime” asks us. Although, Pattinson and Oppenheim make no pretense about that issue. In “Primetime,” it’s the latter.

Hansen is played by Pattinson as a psychotic, dashing weirdo. He dresses and behaves like Patrick Bateman with a savior complex. His Hansen is bizarre, deluded, and maniacal. If it’s your flavor (it’s certainly mine), he’s often hilarious, too. There’s a scene where Pattinson hocks mouthwash all over a bathroom sink that had me cackling with disbelief.

As the “To Catch A Predator” host, Pattinson has delivered his best performance of 2026, topping his also-excellent turns in “The Drama” and “The Odyssey.”

One of the first shots of the movie is of Hansen’s eye as he watches a suspect through a curtain. He’s framed like a tiger behind tall blades of grass, which is the first of many moments in the film that hit you over the head with its big idea. Hansen is the predator!

The saving grace is that the film doesn’t settle for exploring that concept through Hansen alone. He is one of three POV characters.

The second is a young actor named Dan Plum, a composite character of several real-life people, played by Skyler Gisondo. Plum is naïve and ambitious, willing to take on any role that can land him a Screen Actors Guild card. That leads him to NBC, at which he is selected to play a “decoy,” or an actor posing as an underage teen, on “To Catch A Predator.” Dan is our audience surrogate, guiding us into the traumatizing weirdness and Hansen-bred mania of what participation on the show was like. Gisondo is terrific in the part, imbuing Dan with a fount of earnestness, enthusiasm, and innocence, and then slowly chipping away at those traits as the film goes along. He and Pattinson ping-pong off of each other brilliantly.

The third is Andie Bender, a composite producer of “To Catch A Predator” played by Merritt Wever. I had never seen Wever before, and I was blown away by her performance. She plays her character with a cloying wiliness, rarely raising her voice above a soft, insistent tone. It’s simultaneously hilarious satire of Hollywood artifice – she’s not actually being nice – and a layered performance of a character desperate for respect. Despite her tireless contributions to the show, Andie is underappreciated by her colleagues. Her arc revolves around her battle for control over the production of “To Catch A Predator” as Hansen goes off the rails.

Each of the three characters sees “To Catch A Predator” as a means to power, and the plot of “Primetime” tracks their rise and fall as they face the consequences of grasping for it. Dan wants to become a respected actor. Andie wants to be a powerful producer. Hansen wants to “cleanse the earth” of an “ancient evil,” but is really battling a deep insecurity (there’s a funny running bit about his rivalry with Stone Phillips, the anchor of Dateline NBC, played by Bill Heck) and a troubled home life. The movie juggles all three arcs as the film barrels to its fateful, real-life climax (which I won’t spoil here for those who don’t know) and arrives at a conclusion more satisfying than most season finales, even as it echoes the film’s biggest sin: a lack of subtlety.

“Primetime” is vastly entertaining, culturally relevant, formally inventive, visually stunning, and well-performed, but it feels a little heavy-handed. Knowing Oppenheim’s capacity for showing-not-telling, that’s a frustrating quibble.

Even so, it’s the difference between a 9/10 and 10/10. “Primetime” is one of the best movies of the year.

Watch the trailer: