Robert Hanson plays real-life To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen in Primetime, the new feature film from acclaimed documentary filmmaker Lance Oppenheim that looks at the real story behind the Dateline NBC phenomenon.
“You’re about to be a part… of television history,” Pattinson tells a suspected predator in the film’s eerie, atmospheric trailer, doing an uncannily good impersonation of Hansen’s cool cadence.
To Catch a Predator premiered in November 2004 and quickly became a hit. It featured undercover stings of men who thought they were going to meet underage victims, but ended up face to face with Hansen.
The show was cancelled in 2008 after one of its investigations culminated in the suicide of Rockwall County, Texas prosecutor Bill Conradt as police attempted to serve a search warrant. Conradt shot himself as an NBC camera crew entered his home.
The incident — and the history of the show — were recounted in the excellent recent documentary Predators, by director David Osit. The film looked at the ethics of setting up men to be captured on film breaking the law, and featured an extended interview with Hansen, who stood by his work.
He now hosts Takedown with Chris Hansen, a kind of update on To Catch a Predator that premiered in 2022 and airs on the TruBlu streaming network.
The formula of catfishing men into meetings with people pretending to be underage has also led to a flurry of online To Catch a Predator imitators, in which vigilantes capture their targets on film. They argue that they are preventing crimes, while also accruing clicks.
Background on Primetime, Starring Robert Pattinson
Primetime, which is coming soon, also stars Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Matthew Maher, Bokeem Woodbine and singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers.
Pattinson will next star as one of the central antagonists in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, arriving in July.
Lance Oppenheim‘s past work includes HBO’s Ren Faire, about a power struggle to succeed the leader of a beloved Texas renaissance faire, Some Kind of Heaven, a portrait of life in the retirement megacomplex The Villages, and Spermworld, about the quest for donor sperm. At just 30, he’s established himself as one of the most successful and intriguing documentarians in film.
Primetime arrives soon from A24.
Main image: Robert Pattinson in the Primetime trailer.
