7/10
Robert Pattinson’s generational 2026 run—which started with The Drama, then The Odyssey, and will finish with December’s Dune: Part 3—continues with the release of A24’s Primetime. The psychological thriller is a heavily dramatized take on NBC’s How to Catch a Predator, a mid-2000s TV show focused on capturing pedophiles. Pattinson stars as Chris Hansen, the controversial journalist behind the show. Skyler Gisondo, Merritt Wever, and Phoebe Bridgers (yes, the singer) also star.
Primetime is good for what it is. The film is relevant given the rise in media use and online chat forums that pose serious risks for teens. The movie is thought-provoking and morally complex, while staying subtly funny. Its pixelated camera quality and natural acting complement a somewhat insubstantial plot. Dull passing moments lull the film and cause monotonous pauses, chopping up what should be a smooth movie. The integrity in catching and exploiting predators is genuinely intriguing.
The film opens with Hansen chanting. “I will undress you. You will undress me,” Hansen says, before pulling the curtain back. A man in an empty house whips his head around. He thinks he’s alone in the house with a 13-year-old girl. The suited-up Dateline reporter steps out and down the stairs with a sly smile. “You see how this looks, right?” Hansen says.
This, Hansen explains, is How To Catch A Predator, a Dateline segment in which Hansen teams up with local police and online initiative Perverted Justice to lure online predators to their police-surrounded decoy house before Hansen arrives, confronts the predator, and they get arrested. It makes for great television. So much so that Hansen and his producer Andie Bender (Wever) find out that How To Catch A Predator is going from a Dateline segment to its own show, and that it’s going on prime time, competing for a time slot with ABC’s Lost. Ecstatic at this information, the pair set out to make the show bigger. And that means higher interest predators.
Dan Plum (Gisondo), a 23-year-old nonunion actor, becomes a decoy for the show, getting thrown into pretending to be a 13-year-old on his first day of shooting. The experience overwhelms him, but he’s quickly convinced by Hansen to continue their work of “cleansing society.”
As the show expands and Hansen and Bender become desperate for higher ratings, they finally find a high-interest suspect: Texas assistant district attorney Bill Conradt (Alex Winter). Having the decoys go back and forth with the extremely cautious online whale, the team is able to track him down. Employing police to entrap his house, Hansen waits outside his window, ready for his closeup.
But, bang! Crimson blood splatters against the clear pane. Conradt shoots himself in the head. It’s good TV, but is it morally wrong?
Pattinson does what he can for the role, but when depicting someone as dry as Hansen, it’s a lost cause. He is forced to play a glorified journalist with a god complex, who is a pathetic loser in his free time. Pattinson shines with subtle scenes, like his seething jealousy towards Dateline Stone Phillips, but besides his ending cries, there are no notable moments that exercise the range of Pattinson’s acting. He’s not by any means bad in the role, but Edward Cullen has more depth than Chris Hansen.
Decoy Dan, as he is affectionately nicknamed, single-handedly makes Primetime. From the moment this happy-go-lucky character lights up the screen with his rendition of Rent’s “Seasons of Love,” viewers are hooked. Dan changes the most throughout the film, evolving to become more than just a comedic-relief. Gisondo perfectly portrays the naivety and innocence of the young actor. As Dan shifts from excitement to fear to confusion, Gisondo’s microexpressions in each state draw the audience into the character’s mind and help us understand his complex development. You are drawn to Gisondo from the start, even when he’s alongside Pattinson.
The movie excels in developing Hansen and Dan’s relationship, as a sort of mentor-student dynamic. Dan becomes so inspired by Hansen that in a spur of the moment decision when Hansen’s gone, he tries to take over as host and fumbles. Looks like saying “I’m Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC” is harder than you think. Hansen’s later manipulation of Dan to convince him to stay on Conradt’s case stretches Dan thin. The progression of their relationship is the pulling factor of the film. A naive young man is permanently changed because he trusted the wrong man. But the film’s last moments, where Dan finally gets his SAG card and smiles, is a better resemblance to Hansen than pretending to be him ever could.
The pacing of Primetime isn’t completely boring, but slower scenes kill the tempo right before its climax. The script is well-written, with plenty of witty jokes beautifully complementing Gisondo’s comedic timing. But transitions ruin any formality of watching this in theaters. Most of the time, it feels like they’re using the CapCut transition tool. Blurred mixing takes away from the entire movie vibe, and instead makes you think you’re in a low-quality TikTok edit.
Primetime’s overall style is quite distinctive. There’s an eerie feeling that lingers from the titlescreen. (Colonoscopy cameras really do work.) Television blues light the display, and the entire film has a grainy VHS-tape quality. The 2000s setting extends to the film’s visual quality, the resolution shifting depending on the place.
The film tries to be both a contemplative and an enthralling movie, but it just can’t do both. Primetime’s attempts at one limit the other’s full, though not huge, capabilities. Compare this to the decoy houses. From the outside, these places are an average family home, warm, inviting, and comforting. The tone completely shifts inside, becoming cold and desolate. The space is empty and barren, bewildering. The movie is framed as this encapsulating sensation, a story told like no other. Yet it constantly prompts, “That’s it?” The sense of direction is confusing and hollow. Pick a lane and stay in it.
The film adds a layer of nuance to how society handles pedophilia. It understands that people inherently believe child predators are disgusting creatures, so instead of building villainy, Primetime asks questions. It doesn’t try to sympathize with these men, but humanizes them. What does our enjoyment from watching—albeit bad—people getting publicly humiliated on live television say about us? Primetime never truly answers the questions it asks: does the result justify the means? Do criminals deserve to have their crimes televised to the entire world? Who has the right to dress up and play judge?
Conradt’s death, the film’s climax, is the time when Primetime’s questions are examined. In this case, the impulse to keep texting the decoy overpowers his moral compass, allowing Hansen and crew to close in. Even then, he deletes all his profiles and accounts after an inappropriate phone call with Decoy Dan and never intends to follow through on their plan to meet. Hansen and the police ambush him anyway, not for vigilante justice, but because he is their only chance at winning the ratings game.
Primetime sticks with you. It does well in acting and camera work, but will never have the potential to be great, no matter how fictionalized it is. How to Catch a Predator just doesn’t have enough meat to fuel an entire two-hour movie. You can tell from the bare sight of the decoy’s house. At least for Pattinson, it’s another role that will distract from Twilight.
