A review of “Primetime”: Lance Oppenheim’s daring, bizarre “To Catch a Predator” film

Editor’s note: This article contains spoilers for “Primetime” and contains discussion of self-harm and sexual violence.

On Nov. 11, 2004, the very first episode of “To Catch a Predator” aired on Dateline NBC, starring reporter Chris Hansen as host of an undercover sting operation aimed at catching adult men attempting to meet with underage minors. Released within a post 9/11 world enveloped by sweeping discussions of surveillance, fears about the vastness and anonymity of the internet, as well as amidst the birth of a new kind of sensational reality television, “To Catch A Predator” was an immediate success, drawing the attention of an “average of 7 million watches per episode.” Twenty-two years later, the show and its host are the subject of one of the buzziest films of 2026 by filmmaker Lance Oppeheim, entitled “Primetime.” 

Although the show lasted only three years on air because of mounting production costs and ethical concerns, the legacy of “To Catch A Predator” and Chris Hansen has remained a point of fascination and debate online for the past 20 years. One reason for this sustained media fixation is that while the show was canceled in 2008, Hansen has neither stopped his investigations nor stopped marketing his own image. In fact, over the last two decades, Hansen has created a host of similar shows focused on exposing internet pedophiles (most recently “Takedown with Chris Hansen”), appeared in an endless list of interviews and podcasts (including his own titled “Have a Seat with Chris Hansen”), and even shared personalized fan videos on the content site Cameo, ensuring his iconic likeness has never left the public eye. 

With the mythologized caricature of himself Hansen has evolved into in pop culture and the internet since the inception of “To Catch a Predator,” it becomes all the less shocking that it was, in fact, a $40 Cameo from Hansen given to Lance Oppenheim in 2024 that serves as the origin for “Primetime” — one of the strangest, most daring, and compelling films of the year. Given to Oppenheim as a gift from his wife, the video shows Hansen simultaneously role-playing an encounter from “To Catch A Predator” while congratulating Oppenheim on his documentary “Spermworld” and plugging his new shows and podcasts, encapsulating a strange concoction of sober reality, morbid pop-cultural influence, and unabashed self-promotion Hansen and “To Catch A Predator” have come to represent. 

Starring Hollywood juggernaut Robert Pattinson, “Primetime” takes place in 2006, about a year before “To Catch a Predator” would ultimately come off the air. Yet from the moment Pattinson enters the room and utters Hansen’s iconic catchphrase, “You see how this looks right?”, it is clear that “Primetime” exists in its own illusory universe, colored by garish lighting, an omnipresent sense of digital anxiety, and a heightened, melodramatic sense of reality. 

Unlike the clean-cut, measured image of a journalist Hansen often represents, “Primetime” depicts him as a complicated man doing a good thing with less-than-perfect intentions. This tension and dichotomy between his inner and outer persona is one of the most captivating elements of Pattinson’s portrayal of the “To Catch a Predator” host. On set, Hansen is a magnetic presence and moral protagonist, exposing, as he calls it in the film, “an ancient evil.” However, behind closed doors, Pattinson’s Hansen is dealing with the fallout of committing an affair and seems on the cusp of a mental breakdown — obsessive, perfectionist, dishonest, and insatiable. That said, while the film’s portrayal of Hansen has been a major source of external criticism, including from the man himself, the film never explicitly casts Hansen out as a villain, simply as a complex individual. In fact, when asked about his depiction of Hansen and whether he intended to depict him as a villain, Oppenheim responded in an interview with Variety, “No. To me, he’s a hero, a complicated hero… He’s a human with flaws setting out to do something noble, and the effects of capitalism and commercialism make for a confusing experience for him.” 

Herein lies the crux of “Primetime”: it defies categorization as a biopic or documentary, existing instead in a bizarre, surreal in-between Oppenheim describes as “docu-fantasia.” Therefore, instead of pinpointing a singular villain or focusing on the subjects of the show’s investigations, “Primetime” concentrates on the blurred moral lines that “To Catch a Predator’s” sensational success created between journalism, entertainment, and commodification. As a result, “Primetime” feels like a constant pressure cooker, with every step of external success and notoriety generating infinitely more inner ethical considerations and emotional turmoil, all primed to combust in one giant inferno.  

“Primetime” best illustrates the show’s consequential impact and pervasive moral quandaries by structuring the film as a polyvocal narrative that explores one of the show’s “decoys,” nicknamed “Decoy Dan.” Played by Skyler Gisondo and inspired by the real-life Dan Schrack, “Decoy Dan” is a hungry, naive actor desperate for any role that will earn him an Actors Guild card. At first, thrilled to be afforded any role at all, “Decoy Dan” is thrown into a show which he knows practically nothing about, soon shocked to find himself as bait for a middle-aged pedophile. Stunned and traumatized, Dan considers leaving until a pep talk with Hansen convinces him to stay, anointing him a “superhero” in a battle against a higher evil. 

As Dan throws himself into his roles, luring offender after offender into Hansen’s arms, the show’s popularity peaks as it fights for the number one spot against primetime competitor “Lost.” At this point, Pattinson’s Hansen becomes obsessed with finding a white whale — a predator more lurid and powerful than the show has ever tried to capture. This search leads the “To Catch a Predator” team to one Texas assistant district attorney, Bill Conradt Jr. But when the suspect doesn’t succumb to the usual tactics, Hansen and his team bend the law, draw up a shoddy search warrant, and lead a massive team of heavily armed officers to swarm the attorney’s house. In an incredibly dramatic scene with heavy rain, blinding floodlights, and unsettling music (far unlike the actual aired depiction of Conradt Jr.’s house raid that took place in broad daylight), Hansen pressures “Decoy Dan” to call the attorney and lure him outside. With the attorney crying on the phone, the scene abruptly ends with him taking his own life. Afterward, the screen, split into four cameras, slowly shows no input before going black, and the film ends.

In all, the theme “Primetime” seems most interested in exploring is individuals doing good things for not all the right reasons. For instance, the film depicts Hansen as a man compulsively obsessed with justice, whether that means bending law and moral etiquette to expose the subjects of his investigations or indignantly calling the repair number on a vending machine when his snack gets stuck. He is both a hero, looking to protect children from lurid adults on the internet, and an egotistical, superficial, self-promoting entertainer. This inner thematic complexity and nuance is central to “Primetime” and only possible through Robert Pattinson’s stellar performance.

In fact, embodying a cultural amalgamation of every Chris Hansen that has existed in real life or on television, Pattinson feels more at home than ever in this role. Bringing together his utter bizarreness in “The Lighthouse,” ruthless ambition in “Good Time,” and witty charm in “Tenet,” his performance as Hansen is truly magnetic, leaving you, as the viewer, unable to take your eyes off him no matter how heroic or ugly his actions are. 

Overall, “Primetime” transcends the biopic genre, capturing an early-2000s hallucination shrouded in growing fear of the internet and a rabid, growing fixation on televised humiliation and true crime. Like “To Catch a Predator,” the film taps into the public’s fascination with humanity's darkest corners and the mental and emotional toll, as well as moral grey areas, that come with commercializing their exposure. While a complicated subject to delve into, the excellent performances in “Primetime”, unnerving cinematography, and corrupted noir soundtrack make the film a smashing success, like a car speeding on a road yet to be finished — infinitely treacherous and endlessly captivating.  

Gavin McLoughlin, a member of the Class of 2028, is a head editor for The Prospect.

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