Robert Pattinson has been on a bit of a roll lately. He was an anxious live wire in The Drama, a cruel, snarling fop in The Odyssey and now he’s adding another deeply committed, thrillingly transformative and, frankly, weird performance to his oeuvre: an uncanny embodiment of Chris Hansen, the idiosyncratic host of 2000s TV phenomenon To Catch a Predator, in Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime. And the true-crime thriller has just premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
It’s a fittingly bombastic showcase for a portrayal which turns up the dial in every conceivable way—the eerie, strained voice, the unnerving stoicism of his body, the layers of performance that he slips on and off for different aspects of his life… Pattinson gives it his all. It makes his take on Hansen almost hypnotically watchable—it’s just that the film around him doesn’t quite live up to this towering central turn, nor the true bonkersness of its real-life subject matter.
For those old enough to remember it, the formula for To Catch a Predator was as disturbing as it was fascinating: in the period between 2004 and 2007, the Dateline NBC staple saw sting operations arranged to trap adult men who’d arrived at what they believed to be the homes of minors they wanted to have sex with. Captured via grainy hidden cameras, with older-than-they-appeared actors impersonating children both in person and in online chats, the perpetrators were then confronted by Hansen instead, who chastised them for their crimes. When they tried to flee, they were tackled to the ground and arrested by local law enforcement.
Stomach-turning, volatile, painfully intimate and impossible to look away from, the show was typical of the reality TV sensations of its era—morally dubious but oddly cathartic; a form of vigilante justice which provided a conduit for the anger of the American public. It’s easy, then, to see why Oppenheim—previously best known for his documentary work, including on the HBO series Ren Faire—has chosen it as the topic of his debut narrative feature.
When Primetime opens, Hansen and his producer (Merritt Wever) are on the verge of a new milestone: their programme is being moved to the prestigious 9pm slot. This means more viewers, and even more pressure to find juicier, more salacious, high-profile, headline-grabbing stories.
Key to their operation are their decoys: Phoebe Bridgers, still riding high from the success of her new album, makes her formal acting debut here as one of the baby-faced actors sweetly drawing these terrifying men onto the show’s sets. Another is played by Skyler Gisondo (Booksmart, Licorice Pizza), a new recruit who is caught off guard by the renegade looseness of the show’s format. Dangled like bait in front of a series of dangerous, erratic characters, he quickly crumbles. Hansen, meanwhile, remains unmoved, focused only on making To Catch a Predator the biggest success it can be.
With its left turns and stomach-drops, Primetime is a wild ride, but it’s also one which eventually loses momentum. Anna Faris, as Hansen’s long-suffering wife, is underused, as is the always excellent Wever, who is at the centre of a subplot which goes nowhere. There are visualisations and reenactments which feel entirely unnecessary. And there’s a distinct messiness and lack of focus which sags the film as we head into the final act.
If you’re familiar with the story of how and why To Catch a Predator was finally cancelled, you’ll be able to guess where it goes. The film’s denouement is tense as hell, but its final sequence is also wrapped up a little too quickly, ending Primetime on a note I found weirdly anti-climactic. Despite having so much meaty real-life material to sink its teeth into, this is a movie which seems hesitant and unsure of what it wants to do with all those riches. Maybe, in this case, the reality—as glimpsed in David Osit’s 2025 documentary about the show, Predators—is stranger and more compelling than any fiction could render it.
Still, if purely as a demonstration of what Pattinson is capable of, and the gloriously wacky choices he continues to make, Primetime is well worth watching. Now bring on his bizarre, white-haired, villainous turn in Dune: Part Three.
This story was originally published on British Vogue.
