Chris Hansen has spent months trashing Primetime, the A24 thriller that dramatizes his rise as the face of Dateline‘s To Catch a Predator. Now that he’s actually sat through it, he says the movie did nothing to win him over.
“It was so bizarre and so in and out of reality, it’s hard for me to…,” Hansen, 67, said in a 20-second clip posted on X on Friday, September 25, cutting himself off mid-thought. “Obviously I’m not objective because the character is, you know, me, but it was so detached from reality or anything I’ve experienced then or now doing the investigations. I just think it — I’m not sure what the point of it was.”
Short as the clip was, Hansen teased there’s more to come and promised fans a fuller breakdown on his podcast and YouTube channel later that evening.
Naturally, the comments section had a field day. Some jabbed at his tepid review:
“Just by this clip alone, this movie already sounds like a 10/10,” one user cracked.
Another questioned the track record of his old show.
But plenty rushed to defend him, too.
“We all know what the point of it was. You’re a brave man and an iconic part of our culture,” one supporter wrote.
Another went further, calling the film “pedo propaganda” and blasting Hollywood.
Primetime, starring Robert Pattinson as Hansen, revisits the hidden-camera stings that made To Catch a Predator a cultural phenomenon and a lightning rod.
The show, which aired from 2004 through 2007, sent operatives posing as minors online to lure men to a house, where Hansen would confront them on camera. Since news of the film first broke, Hansen has openly wondered whether the whole project was designed to paint him as the villain.
Director Lance Oppenheim says that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“I was interested in mythologizing Chris Hansen, creating a portrait of him that felt very similar to the idea of him in my head as a child and almost creating a form of a superhero film,” Oppenheim, 30, told NPR.
This story To Catch a Predator’s Chris Hansen Breaks Silence After Seeing ‘Primetime’: ‘Detached From Reality’ first appeared on InTouch Weekly. Follow InTouch Weekly on Yahoo so you don’t miss what’s coming next.
