‘Primetime’ doesn’t shy away from Chris Hansen’s downfall | #childpredator | #kidsaftey | #childsaftey

Chris Hansen was a larger-than-life cultural figure. His show, To Catch A Predator, was a ratings monster that has been immortalized alongside Hansen, with years of memes, jokes, references, critiques, and predator-catching shows and content creators taking up the mantle. Ultimately, an incident in North Texas was Hansen’s downfall, inspiring director Lance Oppenheim’s narrative debut, Primetime.

Primetime follows Hansen, played by Robert Pattinson, and his pursuit of television glory through the morally complicated child-predator-catching reality show, To Catch A Predator. Hansen worked with volunteer groups and local law enforcement agencies to entrap adult men who sought to meet up and have sex with underage individuals. 

But after three years on air, the show was canceled in 2007, in large part due to the suicide of Rockwall County, Texas, Assistant District Attorney Bill Conradt, who was targeted by Hansen and the show. 

Conradt allegedly attempted to meet and have sex with a juvenile and was the subject of one of the show’s sting operations. The operation ended with Conradt shooting himself in the head as police began to breach his Rockwall County residence. Conradt’s family’s $100 million wrongful death lawsuit against NBC was settled in 2008 for an undisclosed amount. 

Hansen’s mythos was what drew the film’s star and director to Primetime. Pattinson was the first of the two to be involved, initially signing on as a producer before ultimately deciding to play Hansen. He explained in a Hollywood Reporter profile that he first encountered Hansen and To Catch A Predator while staying in the United States to film the Twilight series.

“I first watched reruns of the show on a channel that used to play back-to-back episodes for what felt like all day,” Pattinson Said. “It was not just the intensely serious subject that the show is about that was connecting to a huge audience. It was something more.”  

Oppenheim, whose HBO series Ren Faire documented a different but similarly morally dubious figure in King George of the Texas Renaissance Festival, fell into the project by accident. Oppenheim told the A.V. Club that a Cameo video from Chris Hansen that his wife gifted him in 2024 is what led him to the project. Oppenheim, who has always been fascinated with Hansen, ran into Pattinson and showed him the Cameo. Two weeks later, Pattinson’s producing partner sent Oppenheim the script for Primetime.

“Ajon Singh, the screenwriter, he tapped into something that was so up my alley, that felt closer to a fever dream than it did like a conventional biopic,” Oppenheim told the A.V. Club. “I really need to make this. I need to drop everything. This is destiny.” 

The film itself is a stylish depiction of a man obsessed, with Pattinson giving an unbelievably accurate portrayal of Hansen. It explores the lines people are willing to cross not just for entertainment or money, but for fulfillment. That pursuit leads to what happened in Rockwall County, Texas, both in 2006 and in Primetime.

Primetime, perhaps to the dismay of Hansen fans who believe To Catch A Predator was a morally righteous endeavor, is extremely critical of its subject. The film doesn’t shy away from the moral complexity of what Hansen built, and it doesn’t treat the Texas incident that got the show canceled as a footnote: It’s the mic-drop climax of the film.

In the film, Hansen’s Emmy Award ambitions lead to the search—and discovery—of a potential “whale” child predator. Spurred by the show’s popularity and its new primetime positioning, Hansen keeps upping the ante. The weirder or more unhinged the predator, the more they make the ratings pop, and Hansen’s dream of being undeniable becomes reality. 

Eventually, the team is lured to Murphy, Texas, after the online predator vigilante who works on the show, Xavier Von Erck (Matthew Maher), finds a potentially politically connected chatter exchanging messages with someone he thought was a 13-year-old boy. Von Erck hilariously floats the idea of it being a senator or even the president of the United States. But that idea galvanizes Hansen, who believes this is the break that will etch his name and the show into the history books. 

The team struggles to get the man they do not yet know is Conradt to travel to their sting house or give them anything about his identity, until he eventually gives them a number to call after being asked to talk on the phone. After identifying him as the District Attorney of Murphy, Texas, and he fails to show up to the sting house, the police department takes matters into their own hands, with Hansen and crew in tow to surround Conradt’s home and arrest him. 

The film dramatizes how the real-life incident played out, only as much as the script’s liberties take to make it work as a movie. Other than the dramatic choices, the chain of events mirrors the real-life incident exactly—and graphically. It’s upsetting, and it leaves characters and the audience to reckon with the storm of what just occurred.

In reality, Hansen never expressed any regret over Conradt’s suicide, standing behind the sting operation that led to it. In the film, the last shot we see of Hansen is him standing in the pouring rain while a recording of him reading the messages Conradt exchanged with his team impersonating a minor plays. The performance is ultimately what mattered most.