Dan Rentel ‘27
Guest Writer
“Primetime,” starring Robert Pattinson as TV’s Chris Hansen, was the first in a list of Fall 2026 releases that I’ve been excited for, and it more than met my expectations. It’s also an unbelievable first narrative feature from its director, Lance Oppenheim. Oppenheim, who’s 30 years old, had done some documentary work in the past, but this movie is such that it’s almost unbelievable that someone who’s never made a feature before made this. And yet, there’s something so freshly strange about this whole thing that it feels like it came from another planet.
Robert Pattinson, too, is coming out swinging. I was disappointed by his recent effort in “The Odyssey,” but he more than makes up for it with this funhouse version of Chris Hansen, who is fighting animalistically for prestige and viewership while making the second season of his TV show, “To Catch A Predator.” Intertwining with the main story is the plucky Dan Plum (played by Skylar Gisondo), who wants to use his new role as a decoy in “To Catch A Predator” to break into the world of professional acting; and Andie Bender (Merritt Weaver), who is growing exasperated with Hansen’s delusions of grandeur and increasingly disruptive idiosyncrasies. Hansen has decided to disrupt the uniformity of their shoot in order to track down an enormous lead, a high-profile “whale” of a predator, whose capture, they think, will earn their newly-earned primetime slot.
Pattinson is quite the sight to behold. It’s a kind of ridiculous overacting that works to draw attention to the character’s warped self-perception, both when the cameras are on and off. The role seems to be crafted specifically for Pattinson at this point in his career. In the movie, Hansen is both breathtakingly confident and morbidly self-conscious. You can imagine anyone else playing the part and getting the mixture wrong — but Pattinson threads the needle, and it’s great fun to watch.
Gisondo and Weaver both deliver more restrained performances with differing levels of success, though never quite failing. Weaver has a grim pragmatism to her that helps to open the movie up — it reveals the bizarre incentive structures that emerge when a crusade has a profit motive. Her clashes with Hansen and his rabid idealism are some of the most entertaining parts of the movie. It’s another role that the wrong actor could turn into a total nonentity, but Oppenheim and Weaver rip open room for the character and use her for all she’s worth. On the other hand, Gisondo gets more to do, and does less with it. I would suspect that some of this emerges from the script. If Bender is supposed to be a pragmatist and Hansen an idealist, you can guess that Plum is perhaps supposed to be the one between the two, with little long-term interest in the mission, one way or another. Unfortunately, you can’t really make sense of what Plum is supposed to be doing, and his parts are the least interesting of the movie — and they’re given a lot of weight.
Which makes sense. Pattinson is doing the dramaturgical equivalent of stunt piloting; he’s a psychotic Blue Angel souped up on cocaine, and you would need another heavy hitter to come anywhere near matching that. The writing and directing, though, which is otherwise hugely entertaining, gets to Plum and hits a brick wall. The effort is still admirable, and I wouldn’t totally blame Gisondo, who seems to be a promising up-and-comer.
This movie would be difficult to call wonderful, as its pleasures are a bit too unpleasant. But it’s well worth watching.
Copy Edited by Julia Kane ’27
Featured image courtesy of The Playlist
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