written by: Ajon Singh, based on the article “Tonight on Dateline: This Man Will Die’ by Luke Dittrich
produced by: Fred Berger, William Iannaccone, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Robert Pattinson, Brighton McCloskey, Lars Knudsen, Ari Aster
directed by: Lance Oppenheim
rated: R (for disturbing sexual material, graphic nudity, some violent content, and language)
runtime: 11o min.
U.S. release date: September 25, 2026

“You see how this looks, right?”

Is it possible to hunt monsters without becoming one yourself? That seems to be the question being wrestled with at the heart of the film “Primetime,” covering the inception and first two years of NBC’s “Dateline” spin-off, “To Catch a Predator with Chris Hansen.” I think the filmmakers have a definite answer to that question, but whether or not that makes for an engaging film is another issue entirely.

It’s 2005, and Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) is riding high on the success of his new show “To Catch a Predator.” He and his producer Andie Bender (Merritt Weaver) get a directive from NBC President Jeff Zucker (playing himself) to make the show more sensational so it can compete against ABC’s hit show “Lost” in the 9 pm primetime slot on Wednesdays.

The show’s behind-the-scenes crew, the folks actually doing the work of luring child predators to the sting operation, includes an overzealous tech guy named Xavier (Matthew Maher) and the show’s regular decoy Del (Phoebe Bridgers). Needing new decoys (a recent one quit after one of the predators looked just like his father), they bring on Dan Plum (Skyler Gisondo), an overeager young actor hoping this will be a way to get his Screen Actors Guild card.

The material itself, from first-time screenwriter Ajon Singh, barely rises above sensationalized movie-of-the-week, ripped-from-the-headlines stuff that used to be all over television in the 70s and 80s. Oppenheim’s direction and the three lead performances, however, help it rise above its rather scandalous ambitions into something more provocative.

Despite what you may have heard from the man himself, the film is not a hit piece on Hansen, though the scene where he wakes his young sons to watch the debut episode of his show – along with all his interactions with his wife, Mary Joan (Anna Faris) – does make him almost entirely unsympathetic. Pattinson makes Hansen understandable if not sympathetic. This is a driven man with no room in his life for anything outside of achieving and projecting success.

Going through the actual tedious work of bringing child predators out of the shadows and into the light has got to be one of the most soul-draining experiences a person could endure, no matter how noble their intentions may have been. When you get down into the mud with these people, it takes a long time to wash off all that muck. Dan and Chris would seem to represent the two sides of the coin, coming out of this experience with very different viewpoints.

However, the film invented the character of producer Andie Bender wholesale and ended up giving her the slightly more recognizable character arc, keeping Hansen even further removed. There aren’t two sides to this coin; it’s not even a coin, it’s a seemingly infinite-sided die with a million different outcomes. Andie’s struggle with a job offer to jump ship and produce “What Would You Do? with John Quiñones” is more clearly drawn and ends much more predictably than Hansen’s now almost completely unstable arc.

Then there’s poor Dan Plum, thrown into a job no one properly prepared him for and struggling to maintain his composure when the (now fully adult) kid from “Jerry Maguire” comes into his house and whips out his dick. And yes, audience, Jonathan Lipnicki is all grown-up and has a hammer (credited as “Whipped Cream Guy”). Skyler Gisondo is among my favorite working actors because he demonstrates so much range within a very specific archetype. Perfectly cast as Superman’s best bud, Jimmy Olsen, in last year’s “Superman,” Gisondo has popped up playing completely unique variants of these characters in everything from “Licorice Pizza” to “The Righteous Gemstones,” and he is a delight to see again and again.

Here he breaks your heart as the well-intentioned but clearly in-way-over-his-head Decoy Dan, doing his best to treat this as a hundred different acting exercises rather than confronting the reality of what he’s doing (until a crucial and outstanding scene at the end of the film’s second act). He perfectly executes the proper levels of empathy and cringe while performing “Seasons of Love” from “Rent” at two different points in the film, making himself truly vulnerable both times in completely different ways.

Pattinson is having himself a hell of a year (and it ain’t over yet). In this film, Pattinson threads a needle Joseph Gordon-Levitt never did in his multiple mid-2010s biopics. He sounds just like Hansen but looks nothing like him, and you somehow buy it anyway. Pattinson’s got Hansen’s cadence and his bizarre newsman-to-his-core, drawing-out-of-words-for-dramatic-effect thing down pat, and you just go with his interpretation of this character.

I think Pattinson’s real superpower as an actor is the fact that he’s never seemed to care if you like his characters (lord knows he’s played his fair share of scumbums). He plays them completely honestly, but he’s never worried about likability or relatability. It makes him the perfect fit for a role like Chris Hansen.

As I alluded to earlier, Merritt Weaver’s producer character was invented, but along with Gisondo, she does get a much more grounded arc. Weaver has always been terrific in everything she’s ever been in, even the rotten “Welcome to Marwen,” and the humanity Weaver brings to the character makes it easy to emotionally invest in Andie over the impenetrable Hansen. She is the crucial third point in this film’s moral triangle, and by far the most adaptable of the three, most comfortable interacting with both the light and the dark.

Oppenheim’s weirdly voyeuristic film has a look all its own, and credit to him and cinematographer David Bolen for imbuing the film with the look and feel of a documentary, television show, and narrative film all in one. Nearly all the sly commentary on the media and its relationship with law enforcement comes through Bolen’s camera work and Daniel Garber’s editing, creating a stark contrast with the much more obvious commentary in the dialogue. There’s an obviousness to saying, “the film is actually watching people watch people,” but it constructs a spectacle around constructing a spectacle.

“Primetime” is a fascinating film about ambition, the dawn of sensationalized “news” programs, and the collateral damage left in the wake of a determined man with a righteous agenda and a fleet of cameras at his command. The pursuit of righteousness has made monsters of many men, and this film seems to think that Hansen is a man lost, one only seeing the world as black or white, right or wrong, light or dark, while bathing in shades of grey. And the cameras trained on him certainly don’t help us see things any clearer.

RATING: ***