A bundle of missed opportunities cloud Lance Oppenheim’s murky take on NBC’s reality TV show To Catch a Predator.
The paedo files: Robert Pattinson
Image courtesy of A24.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Great TV doesn’t necessarily translate into great cinema. NBC’s ratings winner To Catch a Predator (2004-2007) was designed to shame adult men looking for sex with minors. What the police did with the exposed predators afterwards was their business. But the set-up was electric. A rendezvous was established, and certain activities promised beforehand (via a chat room), and the ensuing tryst filmed on national television. Then, like a smarmy presenter of This is Your Life, Chris Hansen would appear with a clipboard, followed by a camera crew. The humiliation was overwhelming. For Hansen, they “were cleansing the world of an ancient evil.” Viewers watched on in awe, at a spectacle equivalent to a public execution. But who is to say who can stage-manage the truth for the greater good?
Primetime marks the narrative debut of the documentarian Lance Oppenheim. His previous films, Some Kind of Heaven (2020), Spermworld (2024) and in particular the awards contender You Can See Everything (2026) – about the duplicitous entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes – have met with critical acclaim. He certainly wears his experience on his sleeve, transforming this potentially exhilarating true-life thriller into a fuzzy, fragmented docudrama. Utilising 16mm and an aspect ratio of 4:3 to give the film a genuine sense of retro TV, Primetime is as visually murky as the backstories of the characters.
Our deteriorating protagonist Chris Hansen is well played by Robert Pattinson, but one feels that much of his private life was left on the cutting room floor. His one scene with his wife Mary is played by none other than Anna Faris, prompting us to wonder if her contribution was trimmed as well. And there’s a mysterious 30-year-old woman who appears on the margins of Hansen’s life, an appearance that could lead to professional disaster for the TV star. She was really Kristyn Caddell (Caroline Hebert), a Florida TV reporter who had an extramarital affair with Hansen – but little is made of their liaison. Clarity is not Lance Oppenheim’s strong suit.
The strongest character is the show’s producer Andie Bender, who turns out to be entirely fictitious. But such is Merritt Wever’s performance that she anchors the film – we believe in this woman – and the actress is already attracting some early Oscar buzz. In spite of Pattinson’s billing, Primetime really belongs to Skyler Gisondo, who plays Daniel Plum, an aspiring actor who gets the gig as a decoy on the show because he looks insanely young for a 23-year-old. However, he just wants to do musical theatre, although the programme’s popularity can do his career no harm. Plum is proud of his rendition of ‘Seasons of Love’ from Rent, and it was a missed opportunity not to play the Broadway version of the song over the closing credits. That would have ended things with a genuine punch of humour and irony that Primetime so badly lacks.
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Matthew Maher, Anna Faris, Bokeem Woodbine, Bill Heck, Jeff Zucker, Jessica Hecht, Alex Winter, Phoebe Bridgers, Tony Revolori, Caroline Hebert, Jonathan Lipnicki.
Dir Lance Oppenheim, Pro Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Fred Berger, William Iannaccone, Robert Pattinson, Brighton McCloskey, Lars Knudsen and Ari Aster, Ex Pro Lance Oppenheim, Ajon Singh and Abigail Rowe, Screenplay Ajon Singh, from Luke Dittrich's article ‘Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die’ published in Esquire, Ph David Bolen, Pro Des Alex DiGerlando, Ed Daniel Garber, Music Ari Balouzian, Costumes Alex Bovaird, Dialect coach Tim Monich.
A24/Icki Eneo Arlo/Range/Square Peg-A24 Films.
109 mins. USA. 2026. US Rel: 25 September 2026. UK Rel: 30 October 2026. Cert. 15.
