PRIMETIME
When the lights stay on.
There’s only a few people who’ve had a better 2026 than Robert Pattinson. I don’t know when it happened, but he’s become one of my favorite actors to watch on the big screen. In his latest movie, Primetime, he plays the one and only Chris Hansen from the mid‑2000s hit TV show To Catch a Predator.
Primetime does a great job showing the extreme lengths on both sides of the spectrum that the show was dealing with — from the unsettling messages being sent back and forth, to Dan the Decoy being thrown into a room with a predator and having to improvise on the fly.
The first thing I noticed is the shots are outstanding. It does a good job making me feel like I’m watching parts of the movie on an old Panasonic TV you have to smack every now and then — and the whole thing has this old camcorder vibe. Pattinson captures Chris Hansen’s voice to a tee.
As the movie unfolds, you start to realize everything gets more and more isolated, mostly from the pressure of NBC executives trying to dominate primetime TV. The subject matter is, in a weird way, dystopian: the viewing audience is literally watching a person’s life crumble on live TV, and most people can’t wait to tune in again the next week. But at the same time, these people are doing things that are unspeakably evil. It’s a weird kind of justice being handed out to people who absolutely deserve it… and in many ways (to quote the movie), what Chris Hansen was doing is “much worse.” In our society today, things live on the internet forever — in perpetuity.
As the movie goes on, we also get a peek at how they portray Chris Hansen from To Catch a Predator. As someone who only knew him from the show, this movie left me with the impression that he seems like a pretty shitty person when the cameras aren’t rolling. Like he’s self‑absorbed with his brand. There’s even a scene where he calls a vending machine company and tells them he’s Chris Hansen from Dateline NBC (Like thats suppose to make them service him quicker).
It’s wild to think he was in most homes in America, but missing from the most important home: his own. There are crumbs of him not being a present father figure because of filming the show. He even comes home, wakes his kids up to show them a taping of his latest episode, and then lies about it to his wife by framing it like they woke up and wandered in while he was watching.
The bow on top is the cheating scandal — and then getting a phone call from some raspy voice threatening him about releasing the story for the world to see.
Through all of this, Pattinson depicts him really well. The mannerisms and the tone shifts when he’s talking vs. working all land. My favorite part is how Pattinson physically shows his life falling apart around him, and how the mounting pressure of “landing the whale” is weighing on Chris.
It’s a slow burner. The supporting cast does a great job setting the scene of what it’s like behind the scenes. The best movies are the ones where you forget they’re just acting. This one earns a solid 7.7 on the scale.