Lance Oppenheim’s first narrative fiction film, Primetime, starring Robert Pattinson, Merritt Weaver and Skyler Gisondo, screened at the 2026 BFI London Film Festival. For a movie this accomplished, I’m not entirely sure what it ultimately accomplishes.
Plot in a nutshell
It’s 2006. The popular Dateline NBC program ‘To Catch a Predator’ hosted by the charismatic Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson), which lures pedophiles into a staged home and catches them right before the act, has gone viral across the nation and is ready for primetime. With executive expectations soaring alongside the ratings, the line between doing what’s right and doing what’s entertaining begins to blur for Hansen and his team.
The Review
The first thing that needs to be underlined is that Primetime is not a movie about catching predators. It’s a movie about the NBC Dateline show To Catch a Predator. It’s important to make that distinction because in going behind the scenes of the cut-throat world of cable TV in the naughties, the race of chasing ratings, and the constant hunt for entertainment value, the people behind the show start looking a little more monstrous and predacious than the people they’re catching.
To be clear, the people they’re catching are perverts who want to, and in most cases were just about to, have sex with little kids. This twisted inversion, where the confused, doe-eyed pedophiles are positioned under Oppenheim’s directions as victims compared to the people who are hellbent on catching them for their show, has to be done with a high dose of artistic irony, I hope.
The world of cable television is soul-devouring, and regardless of how ambiguous some of its morals are, it’s unquestionable that the film is technically accomplished and extremely well made when it comes to exposing the soulless wretchedness of it all. Squeezed into a 4:3 television-box format, shot with what looks like an unclean filter on the camera lens throughout, preformed furiously by an amped up cast and edited with high-octane energy; Primetime does not lack in momentum. It’s also disturbingly funny, even in moments when it feels like it shouldn’t be, which adds to the film’s entertainment value but also naturally makes you squirm in your seat with discomfort.
Most of the credit for the laughs, the discomfort, the amorality of it all, has to go to Robert Pattinson, who carries the film from start to finish. As the rapacious Chris Hansen, Pattinson notches a new level of his ever-expanding acting career in one of his most expressive roles. It is surely one of his best performances, and if it’s hard to understand Oppenheim’s or A24’s motives - though the film is very much in keeping with the studio’s nihilistic sensibilities - it’s easy to understand why Pattinson got on board. As a character study of television host, the film is a towering acting showcase.