Review: Primetime

Posted by: Matthew Ardill  •  September 27, 2026 @ 6:57am

Filed under: Reviews

A24's film Primetime is based on the the 2009 Esquire article "Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die" by Luke Dittrich. The article was written in the aftermath of the suicide of district attorney Bill Conradt when confronted with an early morning police raid coordinated by NBC as part of their series To Catch a Predator. Now, when I say "based", it is very much a loose interpretation of the article which is much more straight reporting. The article captures the experiences of the crew, police officers, and the people in the periphery of the events, as well as the work that went into producing the show, but in a very matter-of-fact and grounded telling. It explores actor Dan Schrack (renamed to Dan Plumb in the film and played by Skyler Gisondo), it discusses "Perverted Justice" (the vigilante group that NBC and Hansen teamed up with to make the show), it goes in depth with Hansen himself, and it focuses much more on the events of Conradt's suicide.

The film, on the other hand, takes these core beats but uses the suicide as a capstone to a much more focused story, placing its camera on our throughline of Dan but also the struggle of Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson), his producer Andie Bender (Merritt Wever), and the founder of "Perverted Justice" Xavier Von Erck (Matthew Maher). Coming at the material through a very impressionistic lens, director Lance Oppenheim captures the subjects in ways that appear to focus their worldview.

Hansen, an obsessive trying to recapture the height of his success – an Emmy-winning piece on child slavery in India – is spiraling, caught and haunted by a memory of evils witnessed on the job but also hungry for recognition. Through a thread of professional jealousy between himself and Stone Phillips (played by Bill Heck), the face of NBC News at the time, we see Hansen's struggles with mental health, family, and wanting to be seen as a "serious" reporter via often tight closeups, very dark shots reflecting his mental health, and unusual and frankly disconcerting acts in preparation for shoots. Pattinson is flexing his acting muscle here with a very restrained but equally unhinged portrayal. It's no wonder Hansen is not a fan of this representation of himself at a low point in his life.

Meanwhile, Maher's Xavier Von Erck is shown as kind of a creep, as uncomfortable a character as the creeps he's trying to catch, in a manner almost akin to a manifestation of a Nietzschean quote. But when he's recounting his "battles" with predators in online chat rooms, casting his bait and fishing them in, he portrays himself with a kind of hacker cyberpunk zeal and grandiose self-importance. Lance's lens often frames him in the neon flash of his computer hardware, which is all over-the-top LED-lit gaming gear. Maher really walks the line between cartoon and creep without landing too camp or over the top.

Merritt Wever plays a producer through and through, and when the lens is focused on her it's a very grey and grounded reality – the reality of a person who pays the bills and keeps the show on track. The lens is much more simple and realistic than in the other scenes. That said, it's possibly one of the most heightened moments of realism, illustrating Andie being a cold calculating professional. Merritt Wever is able to create a character we sympathize with, to a degree, but also understand their cold and calculating nature in taking advantage of a situation where there are no good guys to elevate her career status. The irony here is that Andie, the most grounded and real person in the film, is a fiction. She's an amalgam of multiple producers but not a real person.

Finally, we have Skyler Gisondo's Dan Plum, a bright-eyed optimist drawn very directly from the real life Dan Schrack. An aspiring actor, a fan of musicals, and a person who had no clue what they were getting into when they took a $5,000-a-shoot gig from NBC casting in Burbank. Based in California, he is followed by a bright light that seems to represent his innocence. That light fades over the course of the film to be replaced by an equally bright light in his closing scene, but this time a harsh light burning away the shadows leaving him exposed and bare. Skyler Gisondo brings an innocence to the character that's inescapable: he's eager and keen and wants to do right, but you can also see he's hurting for acceptance and success in a way similar to – and able to be manipulated by – Chris Hansen. As a through line to what is effectively in many ways a horror movie, Dan is the perfect choice for an audience surrogate, and Skyler does an amazing job.

The secondary roles are also incredibly well-handled. Bokeem Woodbine plays unhinged Texas sheriff Cortland Gunn, who is frankly one of the scarier people in the film. Bob Ari is Redbd, one of the few times a predator responds with rage at Hansen's entrapment. Tony Revolori plays one of the predators in a way that creates genuine sympathy for someone where there should be none. Anna Faris plays Chris' long-suffering wife, Mary Hansen, with grace. Interestingly, comedian Michael Chachere and former NBC executive Jeff Zucker are featured as themselves, Zucker being the most interesting of the two given his brief appearance seems to be expressing disdain for what Hansen is doing, but an acknowledgement of the axiom "sex sells" and his using it for leverage, placing To Catch a Predator in the eponymous prime time slot going up against Lost. It's not a very flattering picture of the man and his very real role at the time. That he chose to do this is mildly shocking.

There were two other stand out roles that had very little screen time. First is musician Phoebe Bridgers, who plays Del, the other decoy (real life Del Harvey, a volunteer at "Perverted Justice" who viewed themselves as an activist, later went on to become head of Trust and Safety at Twitter, and now leads an online safety association). Bridgers brings an earnestness to the character and a genuine rage when she sees the exploitation going on and seems to be one of the few people who genuinely stands by their morals. She also serves as the source of one of the more amusing scenes, a moment when she saw an item of merch placed on the online store for the show by Xavier highlighting the earnest belief in what they thought was trying to be done. The other stand out was a barely recognizable Alex Winter as Bill Conradt. His moments on screen are fleeting but are also grounded in a reality that this was a situation that pushed a person to the breaking point. Frankly, it made me want to see more of Alex and what else he can do.

This is a film that touches on sensitive matters. It doesn't try to generate sympathy for the predators, but at the same time it doesn't shy away from showing how predatory many involved in catching them are (again harkening back to the Nietzsche quote about monsters). It's a strange watch, there are surreal moments laced in with moments of factual storytelling, weaving the inner monologues and perceptions of characters alongside the reality of the moments they are caught in. The film itself is shot in 4:3 aspect ration like an older television show, and often relies on camera tricks to place it in the "multicam secret camera" reality of its subject matter, at times creating a claustrophobic and dense storytelling experience. This is a weird watch, it's a hard watch, but it's a worthwhile watch.

Tags: Primetime, Lance Oppenheim, Robert Pattinson, Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Matthew Maher, Phoebe Bridgers, Bokeem Woodbine, Alex Winter, To Catch a Predator

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