{"id":861007,"date":"2026-09-26T05:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T05:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/861007\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T05:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T05:22:10","slug":"chris-hansen-reviews-robert-pattinson-primetime-movie-not-a-fan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/861007\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Hansen Reviews Robert Pattinson ‘Primetime’ Movie, Not a Fan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFormer To Catch a Predator<\/a> host Chris Hansen<\/a> was interviewed on his podcast Friday to give his unfiltered reaction<\/a> to A24<\/a>\u2018s unauthorized, dramatized film about parts of his life, Primetime<\/a>, which he called overly dramatic, detached from reality, and a \u201cfever dream\u201d \u2014 while giving Robert Pattinson<\/a>\u2018s performance a \u201cD\u201d grade.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrimetime<\/a>, which opens Friday in the U.S., is set in 2006 and follows Pattinson\u2019s fictionalized version of Hansen as the popular To Catch a Predator segment on NBC\u2019s Dateline grows into its own primetime block on the network. On the show, Hansen blurred journalistic lines by working with law enforcement and the watchdog group Perverted Justice to intercept adult men as they arrived, unbeknownst to them, at a sting house to meet a minor they\u2019d met online for sex. The men were typically arrested as a result. The series drew mixed reactions, with concerns about potential entrapment-law violations at the forefront of the criticism.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a brief segment produced for his video podcast, Have a Seat with Chris Hansen, the former NBC News journalist is seen exiting a Times Square AMC after viewing the film for the first time at a Thursday night screening \u2014 his first look at the indie drama since its theatrical release. He\u2019s then asked for his first reaction to the Lance Oppenheim-directed film<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to \u2014 obviously, I\u2019m not a judge, because the character is based on me,\u201d he said. \u201cI think because the character is so detached from reality, from anything I\u2019ve ever experienced then or now doing the investigations \u2014 I\u2019m not sure what the point of it was.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe rest of the podcast episode has Hansen discussing the film, its director and Pattinson\u2019s portrayal of him with Fox News\u2019 Jesse Watters. Hansen railed against the movie throughout.<\/p>\n

\n\tOppenheim has said he conceived Primetime after receiving a personalized Cameo video from the To Catch a Predator host. Hansen said on his podcast that he spoke to a mutual friend before seeing the film, and that Oppenheim told the friend it was \u201csomething to the effect of, \u2018a love letter to Chris Hansen, and it gets a little weird in the storytelling.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHansen also flagged inaccuracies in the fictionalized version of his life \u2014 including scenes involving Jeff Zucker and Stone Phillips that he insists never happened \u2014 and said absolutely nothing in the film was close to reality. He assured viewers he\u2019s not the ratings-obsessed figure the script conjures. His biggest gripe, he said, is that the film portrays him as an aloof parent, which he says is far from how he relates to his kids. As for Pattinson\u2019s take on Hansen circa 2006, Hansen had few kind words.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe\u2019s got work to do. I\u2019m kind of the only guy that counts for this, right?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tDays before seeing the movie, Hansen spoke with The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>\u2018s Seth Abramovich about what he knew of the film. A24 hadn\u2019t reached out to him or the production to explain the premise or ask for his input, he said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBased upon what I\u2019ve seen in the trailer and my understanding of what\u2019s been written about the film, they wanted to create something much darker and way more dramatic,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s an insult to the thousands of men and women who work hard every day to protect children from predators. They\u2019ve turned something that is very positive, very challenging and not without risk into what is essentially a horror film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Friday, after viewing Primetime, he doubled down with a direct swipe at Oppenheim.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou have to question the motives of not coming forward and talking to me or anybody I\u2019ve worked closely with over the years,\u201d he said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t want to hear that Chris Hansen is a good guy. They didn\u2019t want to hear that this work is important. This director had a dark image of what he wanted to do. He wanted to create a horror-like film with interesting photography, and didn\u2019t want to hear anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHansen continues identifying and capturing potential child predators on Takedown with Chris Hansen. Earlier on Friday, Hansen\u2019s TruBlu streaming network<\/a> dropped the trailer for I\u2019m Chris Hansen<\/a>, a documentary centered around the host. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen was interviewed on his podcast Friday to give his unfiltered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[17979,236,332256,88,124222,48125,192766],"class_list":["post-861007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-a24","tag-celebrities","tag-chris-hansen","tag-entertainment","tag-primetime","tag-robert-pattinson","tag-to-catch-a-predator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}