Should Chris Hansen ever watch the trippy movie “Primetime,” about the rise and fall of his “Dateline NBC” series “To Catch a Predator” during the mid-aughts, I doubt he’ll be any less miffed by the end than he reportedly has been in the weeks since the trailer dropped.
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trailer → watch → weeks
Master of disguise Robert Pattinson plays the host, who turned confronting and locking up pervs into TV popcorn entertainment, as ruthlessly ambitious and freakishly intense.
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who → play → entertainment
A snarling creature more so than a human, here he’s envisioned as the Gollum of network news.
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he → envision → news
This highly fictionalized, borderline disturbed version of Hansen is a crusader on two fronts.
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version → fictionalize → fronts
On one side benevolent, he fully believes that trapping and publicly shaming pedophiles is his sacred duty.
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trapping → believe → pedophiles
“We’re cleansing the world of an ancient evil,” the character says with the quiet ferocity of a tiger.
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character → cleanse → tiger
Many people will strongly agree with that point of view, albeit in less grandiose terms.
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people → agree → terms
Selfishly, he is also fighting for fame.
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he → fight → fame
Hansen’s internal battle echoes the chief contradiction of “To Catch a Predator” that has generated debate for 20 years — that it’s both good and bad.
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it → echo → years
Yes its methods were ethically fraught (a newsman with ratings on the brain taking an overactive role in police work, producers strapping cameras to cops for action-packed shots, etc.), traumatic for its young actor “decoys” and occasionally dangerous to all.
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newsman → take → all
But, hey, it brought pedos to justice, didn’t it?
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it → bring → justice
Beyond the core mission, Pattinson’s extremely unlikable Chris is a narcissist with a chip on his shoulder who envies the perch and popularity of his patronizing “Dateline” colleague Stone Phillips.
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who → envy → colleague
Stone gets to report from Iraq and Afghanistan — not Fort Myers cul-de-sacs.
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Stone → get → Iraq
Hansen desires that level of power as well, and it’s finally starting to come to him.
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it → desire → him
In an early scene, NBC CEO Jeff Zucker (who, in a bizarre move, plays himself) gives the show a coveted 9 p.m. Wednesday time slot.
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who → play → slot
“I don’t really understand your show.
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I → understand → show
I don’t like it.
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I → like → it
I don’t believe in it.
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I → believe → it
But America loves it,” the real Zucker, clearly longing for the spotlight as much as the main character does, says.
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character → love → spotlight
Hansen runs home and wakes up his young kids in the middle of the night to tell them, “They’re gonna put me on primetime!”.
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They → run → primetime
They don’t seem to care.
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They → seem → ?
Even his children underestimate him.
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children → underestimate → him
So he will go to risky extremes to maintain and grow the unexpected ratings boom of “To Catch a Predator” at any cost.
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To → go → cost
Hansen tells his producer Andie (Merritt Wever): “I need to do something big — bigger than ‘Lost’.”
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I → tell → Lost
What he does ends in a death — the suicide of one of the sickos, which was reprehensibly turned into an episode — and the resulting cancellation of the program.
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which → end → program
Directed by Lance Oppenheim, “Primetime” is not a routine biopic that gives a literal rundown of events, but rather a moody funhouse nightmare for its two main subjects: Hansen and Dan (Skyler Gisondo) the “decoy,” a budding musical-theater actor who takes the “Predator” job to get his SAG card.
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who → direct → card
Dan Plum, a gifted improviser who can convincingly play a boy, becomes the MVP of “Predator,” and Gisondo, who’s most famous for the “Spider-Man” movies, is the MVP of “Primetime.”
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who → play → Primetime
He softly captures Dan’s suburban naivete and good intentions while never losing sight of his big-city dream of being a real working actor.
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He → capture → dream
Andie, with the manipulative tactics of a reality TV producer, feeds Dan’s fragile ego by telling him how great he is.
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he → feed → him
Having never heard that before, he’s intoxicated by the praise and commits fully to the cause.
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he → hear → cause
Until a life-changing event when he can’t anymore.
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he → change → event
The real decoy I assume Dan is based on, Dan Schrack, has spoken about his regrets in recent years.
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Dan → assume → years
“You could offer me $10 million to film that episode in Texas again, and I wouldn’t take it,” Schrack said in the 2025 documentary “Predators.”
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Schrack → offer → documentary
She is masterfully spiderlike as Andie, who sees her sole job as running the most successful business possible.
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who → see → business
She’s a Lady Macbeth, coaxing, conniving and competing to get exactly what she wants.
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she → ’ → what
That the episode works is more important to her than a criminal being put away.
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episode → work → criminal
That consequences-be-damned determination leads to the heartpounding climactic scene, which Oppenheim has staged as a front-lawn war zone.
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Oppenheim → damn → zone
A note on nightmares: Within minutes of waking up in a cold sweat, you usually forget you ever had one.
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you → wake → one
But it doesn’t stick with you quite as forcefully as the doc “Predators” does.
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doc → stick → you
“Primetime” comes down hard on Hansen, no doubt about it.
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Primetime → come → it
…and 3 more, not listed.
The Aporia
