Robert Pattinson in “Primetime.”
A24
Primetime, starring Robert Pattinson as Dateline NBC’s To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen, is finally being reviewed by the real-life Hansen and a bigger number of Rotten Tomatoes critics.
New in theaters on Friday, Primetime examines Hansen’s controversial investigative primetime news program where hidden cameras are used to catch suspected child predators as they meet child decoys at their homes. After Hansen would confront the suspects on camera, police would swoop in to take the alleged predators into custody.
Even though To Catch a Predator nabbed huge ratings for the network and major media attention during its run on NBC from 2004 to 2007, it also attracted major controversy. To Catch a Predator was canceled by the network in 2008 following the suicide of a suspect as he was about to be served a warrant by police.
Primetime debuted to a 93% “fresh” critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer after the film held its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on Sept. 5, based on 14 reviews. Since that time, dozens of more RT-approved critics have posted their reviews this week.
As of Friday evening, Primetime still has a “fresh” critics’ score on RT, but it has dropped from 93% based on 14 reviews to 86% based on 155 reviews. RT has also posted its Critics Consensus for the film, which reads, “Turning the camera’s scrutinizing eye back onto To Catch a Predator‘s journalistic legacy, Primetime interrogates the slippery boundary between justice and lurid spectacle with crackling style and an outstanding Robert Pattinson.”
NEW YORK, NY – MAY 09: Chris Hansen visits Build Studios to discuss “Crime Watch Daily” at Build Studio on May 9, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Pont/WireImage)
WireImage
In addition, Primetime has earned an 82% “fresh” score on RT’s Popcornmeter based on 250-plus verified user ratings, but the site’s Audience Summary is still pending.
While critics and audiences are largely impressed with Primetime, the film’s biggest detractor, Hansen, isn’t impressed with the film. Hansen’s first review of Primetime was in a video on X on Friday before noon. In his X post, Hansen teased that his full review of Primetime would be on his podcast on Friday night.
“It was so bizarre and so in and out of reality,” Hansen commented on video while walking out of the theater. “It’s hard for me to — you know, obviously I’m not objective because the character is me, but it was so detached from reality or anything I’ve ever experienced, then or now, doing the investigations. I just think it’s — I’m not sure what the point of it was.”
Hansen previously turned down an opportunity to see an early screening of Primetime after he refused to sign what The Hollywood Reporter called a standard non-disclosure agreement. Hansen in an interview with Fox News’ Jesse Waters said that the NDA was much more “restrictive.”
What Do Individual Rotten Tomatoes Critics Think Of ‘Primetime’?
Directed by Lance Oppenheim, Primetime also stars Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Alex Winter, Bokeem Woodbine and Phoebe Bridgers.
Peter Travers of The Travers Take is among the top critics on RT who gave Primetime a “fresh” score, writing, “This hallucinatory hellscape puts a scarily brilliant Robert Pattinson in the Oscar race as a TV host who chases predators for ratings and goes mad in the process.”
Katie Walsh of the Tribune News Service also praises the film’s lead actor in her “fresh” review summary, but has some reservations otherwise. Walsh writes on RT, “Pattinson might deliver a terrific, and chilling performance as Hansen — which has garnered the ire of the real-life subject. But after Predators, Primetime has no real bite.”
Jake Coyle of The Associated Press also awarded Primetime a “fresh” score, writing on RT, “The movie is always sitting in judgment of its characters — not an unfair perspective, by any means, but not one prone to three-dimensionality … Yet the cast elevates the film, especially Wever.”
Brian Truitt of USA Today also deems Primetime fresh, writing in his RT review summary, “Primetime goes a smidge too hard on the style, but it works as a wild and intriguing peek at a piece of media that helped shape today’s love-it-or-hate-it viewing habits.”
Zachary Barnes of The Wall Street Journal is among the top critics on RT who give Primetime a “rotten” score on RT, writing, “The movie, only barely delving into its subject’s troubling complexity, ends up flashy and glib, a loosely fact-based fantasia that can’t transcend its own shallowness.”
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times isn’t a fan of Primetime, either. Dargis writes in her “rotten” RT review summary, “It looks good and moves well, and the dark, saturated colors and visual grittiness add some fine Expressionistic texture. Yet it’s hard to know to what end, or to care.”
In her “rotten” review summary of Primetime on RT, Amy Nicholson of the Los Angeles Times calls the film “To Catch a Predator through a fun house mirror — or maybe a mirror in the carnival’s port-a-potty behind the fun house.”
Also giving the film a “rotten” review is Nick Schager of The Daily Beast, who calls the film “a takedown whose critique is as over-the-top and self-righteous as it is painfully simplistic.”
Rated R, Primetime is new in theaters.
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