Beloved news correspondent Chris Hansen has been in the public eye ever since his hit show “To Catch a Predator” first aired in 2006. Capturing would-be child predators through sting operations, Hansen gained the trust and admiration of the American public, with many complimenting him for doing the Lord’s work and hailing him a hero. Well … you know what they say: never meet your heroes.
Director Lance Oppenheim’s film Primetime functions as part biopic, part psychological thriller, part showbiz drama. Oppenheim (Some Kind of Heaven) paints Hansen as a complicated individual who has some skeletons in the closet of his own. The film also focuses on the complex, ugly nature of the cutthroat television industry and how that affects Hansen and his actions.
The film begins in 2006 with one of Hansen’s sting operations, where a military veteran shows up to a house expecting to meet a minor he’s been chatting with online. Instead, he meets Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson, The Odyssey), who enters the room with his typical mix of charisma, power, and confidence. After exposing the perpetrator by reading disturbing messages between him and the supposed minor, Hansen hits the vet with his signature line, “You see how this looks, right?”, before informing the man that he is Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC and they’re doing a story on adults that try to meet up with kids.
As the TV crew enter the room with large cameras on their shoulders, the military vet, like most predators, ooks for a quick exit. Hansen allows the pedophile to leave, even offering him the option to walk out the door he came in. Little does the predator know that on the other side of the door await police, eager and ready to arrest and press the charge of “attempted solicitation of a minor.”
After the police apprehend the individual, so ends another successful sting operation of the show. It’s all in a day’s work for Hansen and the online vigilante group Perverted Justice, which assists Chris and NBC with luring these predators in via online chatrooms. To the viewer who just turned off NBC, it’s another pedophile off the streets and a job well done. To Hansen, Dateline NBC, and Perverted Justice, it’s a bit more complicated than that.
In reality, TV shows, even the ones that are out to do good, are a complex business. The popularity of “To Catch a Predator” is skyrocketing, and the NBC execs call Chris Hansen in for a meeting. They reveal that they plan to move “Predator” to a primetime TV slot—Wednesday nights—where it will compete with ABC’s “Lost” in the same time slot. This excites Hansen, but also further pushes his obsession with the show and introduces a cutthroat competition to be on top.
As we see play out in the film, Hansen’s obsessive nature leads to myriad problems in his personal life: a strained marriage, a poor relationship with his children, and clashes with the show’s producer, to name a few. Pattinson captures the duality of Hansen beautifully. On TV, Hansen puts on a character, altering his personality to suit the show. Pattinson verges on the edge of overacting with this version of Hansen, but when the audience realizes it’s all part of a character, it makes sense. When we see the true Chris Hansen with the cameras turned off, we begin to understand that he’s human just like the rest of us, and nobody is perfect.
Oppenheim does a great job of letting the viewer decide for themselves whether Hansen is the protagonist or antagonist of the film by showing all versions and personalities of him, both the good and the bad. Is it the constant pressure and overbearing weight of competing in the jam-packed television market that causes Hansen to act the way he does, or is that just who he is? Is it possible for someone who is traveling constantly for work to have a good relationship back home, or does Hansen just need to put in more effort?
Oppenheim manages to strike a balance between humor and drama, with some absurd moments that cause the audience to laugh out loud, but also featuring very suspenseful and dramatic sequences. What Oppenheim fails to balance, though, is Hansen’s screentime. A large portion of the film is dedicated to one of the decoy actors and his dream of being a union actor. While this is intriguing at first, far too much time is spent on this character when the viewer is more interested in Hansen.
Primetime ends very abruptly, and I can’t help but wonder if it could have been longer and explored even more, especially on the predators’ front. The pedophiles seem to take a back seat to Hansen and the production of the show. I’m not sure if the film was cut short due to budget, as many independent films are, but there seemed to be more story to tell. Still, what story we do get here is fascinating, and the audience is locked in on Hansen’s every move.
Like many A24 films, Primetime contains experimental elements and over-dramatized scenes, which is, frankly, admitted via text on screen at the conclusion. Primetime is based on the 2007 Esquire article “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die”, which covers the tragic reason Hansen’s “Predator” was cancelled and takes a deep dive into the show and Hansen himself. Chris Hansen has publicly denounced Primetime, alleging it’s a work of total fiction that paints him as someone he was not. Some details of the film and timelines do not quite add up, but many do. Who’s to say what is truth and what is fiction, but to quote Hansen: “You see how this looks, right?”
Matt Patti
Matt Patti has enjoyed voicing his opinions on films from a young age. He has lived in the Baltimore, Maryland, area since 2015 and is a graduate of Stevenson University’s Film & Moving Image program. Matt is currently back at Stevenson University, working as the School of Design, Arts, and Communication's Studio Manager.