Over three years from 2004 to 2007, To Catch a Predator aired just 20 episodes, but it left a big mark on the television landscape. Ostensibly a spinoff of the newsmagazine Dateline NBC, it featured host Chris Hansen teaming up with Perverted Justice, a web-based vigilante organization founded by Xavier Von Erck which attempted to identify and expose pedophiles who were grooming victims in internet chat rooms. Perverted Justice decoys posing as vulnerable underage internet users would lure the alleged groomers to a house where Hansen and his film crews would expose them on camera before turning them over to police. Coming during the formative years of reality television, To Catch a Predator proved to be equal parts controversial and popular before its sudden, dramatic demise.
Looking back from 2026, we can see that the show presaged our current era of gamified public shaming via social media — which might be why documentary director Lance Oppenheim chose it as the subject matter for his narrative feature debut, Primetime.
When we first meet Robert Pattinson’s Hansen, he is obsessively repeating, “I’ll undress you, you undress me.” He’s rehearsing how he’ll confront an alleged pedophile with his own words. Hansen’s theatrical takedown of the man who uses the screen name MarriedAndLookingForFun31313 in a Long Beach kitchen is undeniably good television, but the dark side of the show soon emerges. While he’s on a flight to New York, Hansen is recognized by the guy in the next seat (Creed Bratton). This is still a new thing to Hansen, so he regales his fellow passenger with tales from the television industry. The network brass didn’t want to greenlight this show until he sold it as a popular call to action against the invisible pedophile menace. (His actual words are considerably more vulgar.) His seat mate takes it further, fantasizing about killing the accused people on the show with his bare hands.
Pedophilia is abhorrent and all too common. But what To Catch a Predator based its rating on is something else. Given an excuse to brand someone as an other, people take great pleasure in ostracizing and punishing them. Every small town used to have a pillory, Hansen says. This is the function To Catch a Predator serves.
At least, that’s what he tells himself. Despite his self-narrated origin story of “fighting an ancient evil,” it’s clear that Hansen’s real motivation is ratings. When NBC honcho Jeff Zucker (playing himself) calls Hansen into his office, he makes it clear that he hates the show, but he thinks it’s the network’s best bet against ABC’s Lost. Hansen just needs to keep delivering the big hits. But what does that mean when you’re on a moral quest to rid the world of online groomers? Xavier (Matthew Maher) has the answer: Perverted Justice is tracking the elusive pedo INXS00 aka The Whale, who they believe is a prominent government official. Hansen pulls out all the stops to chase The Whale, and when he finally catches him, it brings both of their downfalls.
For my money, this is the best work of Pattinson’s career. His Hansen cloaks his narcissism in righteousness; self-awareness only creeps in occasionally, like when his extramarital affair is being outed by the National Enquirer. Merritt Wever is supremely creepy as the terminally careerist producer Andie, whose idea to put cameras on guns gets a queasy laugh during the film’s tense climax. Skyler Gisondo and musician Phoebe Bridgers are similarly outstanding as the aspiring actors who become pedophile bait in hopes of earning their SAG cards.
Oppenheim’s camera is restless, and his cutting relentless. His wanton mixture of film and video formats reminded me of Natural Born Killers. The show was called To Catch a Predator, but Oppenheim makes the case that everyone involved, from the alleged pedos getting busted on national television to Hansen to the head of the network, are all predators of one kind or another, and asks the question, “What kind of society watches this for entertainment?”
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