Primetime Review: Robert Pattinson Is Electric In This Dark, Unsettling Media Satire Thriller

“Primetime,” a new satire-thriller about the days when “To Catch a Predator” ruled the airwaves, wants to make you laugh and squirm. It’s a feel-bad movie loaded with slick style and featuring a dynamic, magnetic central performance that you can’t look away from. It’s approach is occasionally murky and muddy, and yet, it draws us in with a toxic cocktail of dark comedy and discomfort.

The TV landscape drastically changed in the early 2000s when reality television experienced a boom that altered the course of entertainment history. Networks came to love reality TV because, compared to traditional shows, it was cheap to produce, and they didn’t have to worry about actors and writers who were members of any pesky unions. Virtually every reality TV show stretched the limits of good taste, but that didn’t matter, because audiences couldn’t get enough of this televised junk food. It was rubbernecking entertainment: we couldn’t look away from the wreckage. We wanted wreckage.

Out of this primordial slop crawled “To Catch a Predator,” a “Dateline NBC” show in which suspected pedophiles were lured to houses under the assumption that they’d be engaging in sex (or, to be more specific, rape) with minors, only to be confronted by charismatic host Chris Hansen. It was an immensely dark, disturbing premise, and yet “To Catch a Predator” became a pop culture phenomenon and was even exploited for absurd humor by late night comedy hosts. Hansen became a star. And then it all came crashing down. Sort of.

While the original “To Catch a Predator” is gone, Hansen is still doing his thing elsewhere, and unscrupulous YouTubers have stolen his act to do their own amateur pedophile catching shows online. Many of these revelations were detailed in David Osit’s excellent, unsettling 2025 documentary “Predators,” which delved into the “To Catch a Predator” phenomenon and dared to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the show was a bad thing.

This is slippery ground to walk on, because in the eyes of many, criticizing “To Catch a Predator” is tantamount to saying you sympathize with pedophiles. So what if Hansen and his crew’s methods weren’t always on the level? They were turning a spotlight on potentially dangerous sex criminals. Isn’t that worth a morally dubious approach? Osit’s doc highlighted the conflicting truths that many of these predators were abhorrent and that “To Catch a Predator” was inherently repulsive on an ethical level (not to mention a legal one: many of the suspected pedophiles Hansen and company caught ultimately walked away without any criminal charges).

While “Predators” was introspective and reflective, Lance Oppenheim’s “Primetime,” which is covering similar ground, is manic and unhinged. Perhaps too unhinged. Forgoing any semblance of subtlety, “Primetime” is an unnerving blend of satire and thriller, focused on Chris Hansen as played by an electric, scary Robert Pattinson. While the Hansen on “Predator” had a kind of smooth huckster’s charm, Pattinson plays him as an empty shell in search of high ratings. He knows all the right words to say to sell his show as a righteous quest to vanquish evil, but you get the impression that he doesn’t actually believe what he’s saying. In fact, he might not believe in anything. He just wants to succeed.

Pattinson, who is having one hell of a year, has become a must-see actor, always turning in a performance tinged with a kind of weirdness that feels appropriate to whatever character he might be playing. He’s primarily the main reason to watch “Primetime,” which is engrossing and disturbing but never quite as thoughtful as it should be. Ajon Singh’s script feels like it’s only scratching the surface and that there’s so much more to be said. At the same time, “Primetime” hits a unique, queasy blend of dark, dark humor and bad vibes; by the time the film ended, I confess I felt kind of miserable. That’s complimentary. I think.

Oppenheim and cinematographer David Bolen pull out all the stops to give “Primetime” a textured, sickly look, full of harsh blues that seem to invoke the lighting of TVs beaming out images in darkened bedrooms. Numerous extreme close-ups create discomfort, forcing us to get up close and personal with subjects we want to get far, far away from. It makes for a fascinating viewing experience, but I’m pretty sure none of it would work as well without Pattinson.

Pattinson is backed up by an excellent cast, all of whom are doing strong work here. The always-welcomed Merritt Wever is characteristically great as Andie, the show’s producer who is constantly chomping on gum and might be even more morally bankrupt than Hansen, although she doesn’t seem nearly as unhinged as he is. There’s an interesting, if undercooked, storyline here where Andie has an opportunity to leave “Predator” to work on something more uplifting. Ultimately, she states: “I don’t want to.”

While Pattinson’s Hansen is the big draw, he’s a kind of co-lead character, sharing the spotlight with struggling actor Dan Plumb, played by Skyler Gisondo. Dan lands a gig as a decoy on “Predator,” pretending to be an underage boy to lure in pedophiles. Dan seems to be the most morally conflicted character here, and Gisondo is sympathetic as he plays the character struggling to both do a good job while also feeling rotten about the whole experience.

Dan seems to be the only character here with something resembling a real arc, but it’s Pattinson’s Hansen who sucks up all the oxygen in the room, growing increasingly more unhinged and desperate as he tries to get better ratings and beat “Lost,” which is airing at the same time (on another network) as “Predator.” 

But who is Chris Hansen? At least, who is the fictionalized Chris Hansen we see in “Primetime”? I’m not sure even Hansen knows. Does he have any real emotions or feelings beyond insecurity (there’s a running gag where Hansen is seethingly jealous of legitimate newsman Stone Phillips, played by Bill Heck) and a thirst for success?

He has a wife and kids, but it’s unclear how he feels about them, if he feels anything at all. In a hilariously weird scene, Hansen returns home late one night and wakes his two sons up to force them to watch an episode of his show. He wants them to be impressed. His strange wife (an underutilized Anna Faris) floats through their house like a ghost, and it’s no surprise when we learn that Hansen has been unfaithful to her. But even his infidelity seems like an act; he’s merely going through the motions of a human being without understanding what they mean. He has a family because that’s what normal people do. He has affairs because that’s what celebrities do. But does he put any thought into any of this?

“Primetime” keeps your attention as it lurches towards a seemingly inevitable conclusion. Other movies have covered similar territory in more successful ways — “Network,” “Nightcrawler,” etc. — but the slick, sick style of “Primetime” combined with Pattinson’s gonzo performance get the job done. Oppenheim also finds ways to blur fact and fiction, like having former NBC programming head Jeff Zucker play himself.

Anyone worried that the film would go soft on the subjects of “To Catch a Predator” can put those concerns to rest. “Primetime” has no real sympathy for its potential predators. It has no sympathy for anyone involved in this story, really. At one point, Hansen tells Dan about an ancient, evil darkness that has been spreading forever. By the time “Primetime” ends, that darkness has seemingly swallowed everything, even while under the harsh glare of TV lights.

/Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

“Primetime” opens in theaters on September 25, 2026.