Director: Lance Oppenheim
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Merritt Wever, Skylar Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers
Screenplay: Ajon Singh
110 mins. Rated R for disturbing sexual material, graphic nudity, some violent content, and language.

Have a seat…buckle in, and prepare yourself for Primetime, the next film of Robert Pattinson’s generational 2026 run of incredible films. Pattinson plays Dateline NBC’s Chris Hansen, creator of the popular mid-aughts television series To Catch a Predator, and it’s one of his most complex and morally grey performances yet.

No one at NBC quite understands To Catch a Predator or its host, but the audience loves it. Now, Chris Hansen and his producer Andie (Merritt Wever, Marriage Story) have to up the stakes to keep in combat with the other networks and their copycat shows. They hire young musical theater actor Dan Plumb (Skyler Gisondo, Superman) to play their new child decoy, the find great success in their quest to be “bigger than LOST,” but what happens when their strive for ratings put them in more and more uncontrollable situations?

Opening with a complete segment of the show and its host’s reveling in his capture, Primetime places its viewers in the headspace of the people behind the scenes, most notably Hansen, who assures those around him that he’s in this for the right reasons, but he’s kind of getting off on the catch as well. This heroic boy scout persona he gets to adopt allows him to be the savior, but behind the scenes, he’s all about the CONTROL that this show gives him, and that’s really what the film is about. CONTROL, and what happens when those who crave it lose it. This applies to the Predators as well, grown men who are fully aware that what they are doing is wrong, yet only willing to admit it when the camera is focused on them, only willing to give up CONTROL after it’s already been usurped.

As always, Pattinson is incredible here, giving a show-stopping portrayal of the TV host and his rigid focused mental state. It never feels like a lampoon or a caricature, and Pattinson imbues a lot of his usual frenetic energy to a man who exists more like a quiet calculated bomb, a man who carries faults of his own and seems to disregard anything that isn’t a necessary focus right now, like colleagues and family. There’s a moment where he tells Dan that, “You’re either with me…or with them,” referring to the Predator they are trying to catch, and he’s never really concerned about the safety or well-being of the people that support his vision. There are a lot of shades of Nightcrawler here, and that’s an appropriate comparison as both of these movies deal with the scuzziness of society and the lurkers who want to make money off it.

The real standout of the film is Skyler Gisondo as Dan Plumb, a guy searching for enough acting roles to qualify for SAG and become a genuine card-carrying actor. When he takes the job as a child decoy, he doesn’t really know what he’s getting into, the effect that it will have on his mental and emotional well-being, and his high-risk/low-reward job being a thankless job in the grand scheme of things. Gisondo is excellent here, someone who tries to make the most of his performance and give the audience a real show. It’s a disturbing portrayal of someone given all the right reasons to do something, but never realizing the personal toll of his choices.

Primetime is presented in a very full-frame VHS visual look, which some viewers will find off-putting. It can be a little grating on the eyes, but it matches the style of the show and the film’s story quite nicely. There’s a sense that we’re watching an old found VHS tape of something we weren’t meant to see. This is a movie that dives into the ethics of doing a good deed for what may be misguided reasons, and the audience that tuned in nightly like at the Roman Colosseum to witness punishment for these disgusting men who would put their hands on a child. For those with sensitivity toward the crimes featured on To Catch a Predator, Primetime spends a lot of time focused on the conversations between predatory men and the “children” they have targeted, and it’s often very difficult to listen to.

Primetime is not an easy film. On the outset, one would view the events through a lens of praise, but there were a lot of uneasy practices done to pursue what would ultimately be a ratings juggernaut for several years, and it calls into the questions the means with which to pursue this justice. It’s also a movie that presents a lot of character and story without telling you immediately how to feel about it. It’s difficult content and disturbing throughout, and it ends on morally uncertain grounds, but it’s never forcing an opinion on the show or its host, merely presenting a flawed man looking to stake his claim on the world at the cost of those around him.

4½/5
-Kyle A. Goethe