‘Primetime’ film review: Not the usual program

Picture this: you buy a ticket to see a new movie about a mid-2000s TV show you watched as a kid, sit down in the comfy theater seat to an expectation of learning more about broadcast television and investigative journalism. Instead, you experience a riveting, unusual film with an impressive display of talent all around. Credits Roll. You’ve just seen Primetime. 

The film tells the story of Chris Hansen, the host of the Dateline NBC show To Catch a Predator (2004-2007). The show was infamous for broadcasting the luring in, questioning and arrests of real pedophiles.

Admittedly, I never watched the show and only saw occasional clips and compilations on YouTube while growing up. The show was quite popular even in its short life cycle but faced significant legal and ethical criticisms. Something beloved yet controversial is the perfect subject for a biopic 20 years down the line. 

Over the last several years, Hollywood has begun pumping out countless biopics. Biographical films telling the stories of music icons, actors, companies or technologies have exploded in popularity, garnering critical acclaim or simply solidifying a legend for the next generation to experience. 

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), House of Gucci (2021), The Iron Claw (2023) and even Tetris(2023) are all recent biopics, covering a variety of topics and starring world class celebrities tasked with carrying on a legacy started decades before. 

Before its release last month, Primetime seemed to follow the usual biopic formula but the movie completely subverted my expectations, blowing me away. 

I was too young to enjoy the show while it aired and never grew to understand the craze about it (or even Chris Hansen himself). Director Lance Oppenheim and the niche cast of talent is what drew me to the film. Robert Pattinson stars as Hansen, supported by Skyler Gisondo, Merrit Weaver and Phoebe Bridgers. 

Every single performance in this film should be celebrated. Each actor, whether big or small, brought sincerity and nuance to their character. Most parts were dramatized from their real world counterparts. This is reinforced by Hansen himself who describes the film as close to fiction. 

Pattinson has been on the big screen consistently this year. Primetime is his third major movie to release in just one calendar year, with yet another coming in December to close out 2026. 

I find it interesting that each of Pattinson’s roles seem wildly different but they’re actually quite similar. In all four of his films releasing this year: The Drama, The Odyssey, Primetime and Dune: Part 3, Pattinson plays the haunting, sleazy villain-esque character, despite all of these films having the most opposite storylines and settings. This goes to show that he should give his agent a raise, but also that he plays to his strengths while completely camouflaging himself into a new world. 

I can confidently say Pattinson deserves to be nominated for one, if not more, of his roles this year at the upcoming Academy Awards. 

Distancing itself from reality, the film used some unusual, unnerving coloring and camera effects. The film contains brief uses of x-ray, heat vision and outlandish filters that only last a flicker of a second. These shots create a feeling of distortion and outline a descent into Hansen’s obsession with solving the big case towards the end of the film. 

These stylistic choices remove the premise further from the original source, so much so that it can be seen as a fiction film. Comparisons have been made to a modern retelling of Dracula, as there are countless clues in the film that connect to the 1931 Dracula film, as well as other mythological characters. As Primetime progresses, it becomes its own sort of beast that none of the audience expected in the beginning. 

The film takes a very real show with a daring and intense host and creates a dreamlike state around it, mythologizing it like a story you’d tell around a camp fire. At this point, it is barely a biopic at all. 

Have we outgrown the basic biopic and begun extensively dramatizing stories from our childhood to become something more? This reminds me of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996), which took one of the most famous stories ever and placed it into a modern Los Angeles-esque setting. The story we know and love, but now with an elevated style and level of bravado that would make the original source cringe. 

I would 100% recommend Primetime to anyone who enjoys thrilling, stylistic and inventive stories. Easily one of the best and most surprising films of this year (which is saying a lot). It was a great joy to experience this film in a packed theater, hearing laughs and gasps alike.