Publication Date: 09-30-2026

Primetime (2026) review

Dir. Lance Oppenheim

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★½

You just had to be there when To Catch a Predator was airing on Friday nights on NBC in the mid-aughts. I was about eight at the time, and spent many evenings with my mother watching those slick, edgy adult shows like Cold Case and 20/20. I’d be lying if I said I remember her giving me some kind of morality talk about being hyper-vigilant when using our dial-up computer at home during that time. For a young boy like me, it was simply riveting to eat junk food and watch salacious television. Even in the moment, Chris Hansen’s Dateline NBC spinoff program felt heavier and more real than anything else on TV.

In various corners of the internet, it’s reassuring to see that the work that Hansen did remains lauded, especially at a time when “Epstein Island” is still one of the most triggering political buzzwords and the oligarchs who run America, and even the world, are proving each day that they make world domination-crazed villains in Disney movies appear nuanced. Enter Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime, which appears to suggest that while Hansen helped bring individuals who commit one of the most disgusting and unforgivable acts to both justice and public disgrace, perhaps the bigger enemy at hand was his swollen ego and quest to top himself to improve ratings.

If that sounds silly, it’s because it kind of is. Despite its alluring visuals, unconventional compositions, and swath of memorable performances, Primetime posits many vague moral quandaries, the likes of which appear facile when the targets of Hansen and his large team of producers and showrunners is catching those who harbor the intent to commit sex crimes against minors. Hansen’s program — which you may be shocked to know only ran for three years with 20 episodes in total — not only showed in unambiguous terms that no conventional archetype exists for men who prey on children, but how the internet was rapidly accelerating the problem by affording predators an opportunity to anonymously chat with children and subsequently groom them. Hansen deserved better than a movie that’s keen on being a stylistically potent dramatization too timid to stand firm on any major point.

Loosely rooted in actual events — and called “identity theft” by Hansen himself — Oppenheim’s film takes place after Hansen (Robert Pattinson in his 348th film this year) has already achieved national fame via Dateline NBC‘s To Catch a Predator spinoff. The hunt for catching pedophiles in various American cities is a hasty one, with Hansen’s producer, Andie Bender (Merritt Wever), working tirelessly to wrangle a crew and secure domestic settings; Xavier Von Erck (Matthew Maher), the head of the anti-pedophile vigilante group Perverted-Justice, reeling in prospective offenders; and Dan Plumb (Skyler Gisondo), an aspiring actor-turned-decoy, adjusting to the demands of the playing the underage prey on set.

When NBC head Jeff Zucker (played by the real-life TV mogul) bumps Predator to primetime, in direct competition with ABC’s Lost, Hansen becomes even more hellbent on nailing a “whale” — a significant public and/or political figure — on his show. He knows that the primetime slot can be taketh away just as quickly as it was giveth, so he launches into an all-consuming spiral down upping the ante, pressing himself, his decoys, and his producers to assure they get bawdier with each episode. The constant traveling has put a strain on Hansen’s marriage to Anna Faris and his relationship to his two young boys, and when the National Enquirer threatens to expose his extramarital affairs, he suddenly has that albatross weighing on him as well.

Oppenheim and cinematographer David Bolen went to great lengths to make Primetime one of the most uniquely intense-looking movies of the year. A documentarian by trade — he’s the co-director of the highly anticipated Nathan Fielder movie You Can See Everything — Oppenheim brings a vastly different energy to this movie, which sidesteps biopic conventions. He remarked about how the original To Catch a Predator show was never commercially released on home video nor streaming, so what remains of it are low-quality rips that have degraded with each passing attempt at digitization. Ever try to watch an old Siskel & Ebert review on YouTube? Predator clips are similarly shoddy.

With that in mind, Primetime is shot on 16mm and framed in 1.50 and 1.33 aspect ratios, rendering it that noticeably claustrophobic, “boxy” look, as if to resemble television. After consulting with television professionals, Oppenheim utilized a long-defunct video camera tube from the 1980s known as a “Plumecon.” The old, decrepit tubes some tired crewmembers were able to unearth were fried but functional, and helped contribute to the film’s distorted, dreamlike quality. In layman’s terms, its frothy palette, muted colors, and dulled compositions resemble that of Instagram filters, but they’re so visually striking that they echo analog horror. In some of the more nightmarish moments involving closeups on Hansen’s face, such as in one encounter with a rabbi, Oppenheim and Bolen’s aesthetics reminded me of Skinamarink.

Performances across the board are memorable. Pattinson frequently nails Hansen’s inflected vocal tone, which is difficult to impersonate, and remains convincing even as he begins to break down and accost members of his staff. Wever does great work as the wrangling producer, whose loyalty to NBC is suddenly tested when she receives a job offer from a disembodied voice on the phone, willing to cooperate with her shifty schedule. I was also taken with Skyler Gisondo, an actor whose unique features and vocal range have piqued my curiosity since I first remembered his extended role in Vacation (2015). Gisondo has arguably the toughest challenge of playing a character who is an aspiring actor and then an employed actor who must play a teenager in both look and voice.

It’s what Ajon Singh’s script does to these characters that left me the most uncomfortable. The decision to make Gisondo’s Dan a conflicted individual, with evident moral qualms about his actions, was underdeveloped to the point of being questionable. Positing Dan as someone who appears to have great sympathy for the men Hansen and company are targeting just feels strange and strangely misplaced without context. Context is not something Singh’s script stops to give us. We’re told to believe that Hansen’s obsession with luring and shaming child predators originated from a trip to India in the 1990s, but it’s so hokey in its portrayal that it lands with a thud.

Oppenheim’s movie works so hard to get photographic details so precise that when Dan shows up for his first Predator shoot in a three-piece suit only to be disrobed by Wever’s Andie and thrust into a more boyish outfit, it makes you question how Singh’s script could negate the fact that Dan would’ve been put through the ringer, coached, and likely urged to sign an NDA before setting foot on the set of the program. These misgivings turn what should’ve been a slam-dunk in this tried, hyper-aware social climate into a movie about what it’s about, tethered to being convincingly filmed but flimsily conceived in terms of messaging.

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Merrit Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers, Matthew Maher, Bokeem Woodbine, Anna Faris, Alex Winter, Tony Revolori, and Jonathan Lipnicki. Directed by: Lance Oppenheim.