Tortured fiancé in The Drama, arrogant suitor in The Odyssey and now America’s favourite paedophile hunter – Robert Pattinson is having quite the year. He’s at his very best here as the well-dressed, swaggering TV host, Chris Hansen, in Lance Oppenheim’s debut feature, Primetime, a dramatisation of the hit 2000s series, To Catch A Predator.
The opening scene has Hansen reciting excerpts of online exchanges of a sexual nature between an adult man (played by Tony Revolori) and a researcher posing as a minor. When Revolori’s character agrees to meet the ‘minor’ in person, he’s greeted by a decoy in a house fitted with hidden cameras, and Hansen is lurking behind a door or a curtain somewhere, ready to pounce. Soon, he swans in, asks the predator to ‘have a seat right there’ and starts grilling him on his intentions. ‘I’m Chris Hansen, with Dateline NBC, and we’re running a story about adults who try to meet teens online’, he finally says, while a police unit stands outside ready to make the arrest.
