It’s a Wednesday night at 9 p.m. Do you know where your kids are?
If you happen to be the dramatized version of To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen, as depicted by Robert Pattinson in A24’s Primetime, you’re certain that you do — at least, you’ve convinced your network that you know the whereabouts of everyone else.
Hansen shares this insight, drink in hand, with a fellow passenger on an airplane: this belief is what led to his show getting the green light. He explains to his executives that children aren’t out wandering the streets or falling into wells. Instead, they are alone in their rooms. However, outside, Hansen warns, stands a man on the porch, with his genitals exposed. In movie-Hansen’s shockingly crude language that we won’t fully quote: he’s about to storm that bedroom.
But if his viewers tune into To Catch a Predator tonight on NBC, Hansen claims he’ll provide them with the knowledge to prevent such encounters.
The significance of the guidance he offers is clear to anyone aware of the events from that 2004 series. The Dateline program featured Hansen emerging from closets and bedrooms to confront suspected child predators lured to these locations — which notoriously resulted in failed legal actions, dangerous imitators, and at least one fatality.
However, Primetime is anything but a straightforward critique. The film chronicles this troubled history through a whirlwind of absurdity and peculiarity. It unfolds as a chaotic, spiraling dark comedy, so unsettling (it is produced by The Strange Thing About the Johnsons’ Ari Aster, after all) that you won’t be surprised when it combines offhand humor with disturbing horror.
We witness Tony Revolori (Spider-Man: Homecoming) making exaggerated, absurd expressions to the camera while juxtaposed with images of dismembered children’s bodies left in an unidentifiable jungle. Pattinson’s Hansen is seen inexplicably spitting mouthwash into a sink — striking a pose that resembles not a journalist but rather an attacking goose.
Later, we observe that same goose-like figure pursuing an actual monster, a representation of the supposed threats lurking outside society. Yet, as he searches for that malevolence externally and gazes into the face of evil, we are confronted with his own darkness.
Pattinson’s performance is characterized by a fearless commitment to the role: an apparent inability to feel embarrassment allows him to fully embrace accents, impersonations, and sheer absurdity.
In this instance, he embodies a campy, over-the-top version of Chris Hansen: one who drawls “Why don’t you take a seat” with a deep, serious tone that, in the hands of anyone else, would simply appear ludicrous.
The bizarre, chaotic portrayal of Chris Hansen in Primetime reveals something new and strange about the To Catch a Predator host. (Elevation Pictures)
According to director Lance Oppenheim and writer Ajon Singh, all these exaggerated traits serve to unveil a profound decay at the heart of the real individual. Drawing inspiration from the provocative article “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die,” which discusses a shocking outcome from one of Hansen’s stings, Primetime does not exactly champion Hansen’s Dateline series. The film reflects critiques — and even legal decisions — against the resulting “Creep Catcher” groups that would replicate To Catch a Predator‘s methods, delivering pointed and evident condemnations.
This context makes it clear why the real Chris Hansen has not exactly embraced the project.
Instead, he claims to have purchased his own advertisements before the film’s release, asserting that the narrative presented is entirely fictional. Like the Church of Latter-day Saints did in the Playbill for The Book of Mormon, he directs audiences to his own content where he claims the authentic story resides.
The true crime streaming platform he has since established continues to produce material related to sexual crimes. An ongoing series of new shows follows the format and capitalize on viewers’ unquenchable thirst for the public humiliation and vigilantism introduced by To Catch a Predator.
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The critical interpretation of Primetime‘s distorted reflection is evident. Rather than granting Predator and its seemingly noble objectives any acknowledgment, Oppenheim’s intention is to systematically deconstruct Hansen’s perceived self-interest while simultaneously humanizing his targets.
Through Hansen’s interactions with a frazzled producer (Merritt Wever), a visibly traumatized and exploited “decoy” actor employed to attract these alleged offenders (Skyler Gisondo), and the empathetic portrayal of the subjects themselves, Primetime delivers a clear message.
The glassy-eyed, self-absorbed, and frantic Hansen does not run Predator as a noble mission, the film asserts. He does not manipulate local police to circumvent laws regarding search and seizure, wake his barely school-aged sons in the middle of the night to witness his latest capture, or glare at NBC reporter Stone Phillips reporting on “real” news out of some altruistic intent.
In Primetime‘s perspective, he is motivated by a desire to be in the spotlight.
Robert Pattinson, right, appears with actor Tony Revolori in a scene from Primetime. (Elevation Pictures)
This notion alone is inadequate. The idea that respectability first perished on television is too obvious to the point of being insulting; it wasn’t enough to sustain the sci-fi commentary on capitalism The Running Man last year, and it’s insufficient to uphold Rupert Murdoch/Larry Lamb biopic Ink that showcased at this year’s TIFF.
Nor does it suffice to merely acknowledge the pervasive fear surrounding stranger danger that has fueled political agendas and campaigns over the last five decades. From the genuinely poignant, loosely inspired adaptation of six-year-old Etan Patz’s disappearance in Without a Trace to the disturbingly exploitative child-trafficking film Sound of Freedom, the overwhelming fear regarding children’s safety undeniably influences us.
What Primetime delves into is more probing and disconcerting. It raises questions not solely about self-deception but about how a lack of empathy appears to be rationalized, if not encouraged, when interacting with Hansen’s subjects.
This topic is echoed by the same airplane companion, who inquires whether Hansen has ever contemplated bypassing the justice system and simply “bleeding” the men he apprehends.
Hansen reflects on this proposition, admitting that perhaps what he does is even worse. Then he smiles.