When I sat down to record this video about the new film Primetime, starring Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen, I knew I was walking into contested territory. The film's premise alone—recasting the face of "To Catch a Predator" as a self-obsessed, delusional predator himself—was guaranteed to generate hot takes. And it did. My feed filled with titles like "The Hidden Sins of Chris Hansen" and "Chris Hansen Was Never a Hero." What I wanted to do in this video was push back against what I saw as a wave of moral revisionism, while still being honest about Hansen's flaws and open to the possibility that something stranger was going on behind the scenes. Looking back at the transcript, I think the video accomplished that balancing act—imperfectly, but deliberately.
My core argument was this: whatever Chris Hansen's personal failings—and I said explicitly that I'm "100% sure he's not a saint"—portraying him as the true villain of a story about child predation is a bizarre inversion of moral reality. The film, as I read it, doesn't just assassinate Hansen's character; it implicitly casts suspicion on anyone who expresses moral outrage at child exploitation. As I put it, the movie functions as "a paranoid condemnation of anyone who condemns crimes of child exploitation." That's classic moral relativism dressed up as edgy cinema, and I found it, frankly, a little evil in its timing.
I built the case from several pieces of evidence. First, the film's own framing: Hansen is depicted as a narcissistic womanizer whose delusions eventually become lethal—a clear allusion to the unaired Bill Conrad episode, in which a Texas assistant district attorney took his own life while the Dateline crew surrounded his home. Second, I cited the film's visual language, particularly the airplane scene where Hansen meets an awkward older fan, shot with a lingering close-up that makes him look like a villain. My interpretation: the film wants to pathologize the audience itself—anyone who enjoys watching predators caught is framed as mentally unhinged.
Third, and most damning in my view, was the real-world context I presented: Hansen was asked to sign an extraordinarily restrictive NDA—relinquishing rights to his name, image, and likeness—just to watch a film made about him, which he'd never been consulted on. He showed up at A24's offices, refused, and walked away having seen nothing. Fourth, I raised the uncomfortable question of motive: among the many people Hansen caught over the years was, reportedly, a member of Netanyahu's personal security detail. I asked, carefully, whether the film could be retaliation—for exposing elite predation generally, or for offending a particular ally in the Middle East with, as I put it, "a bad moral character and enormous influence" in American politics and culture. I also noted the obvious: Hollywood was long run by "one of the most prolific predators on the face of the earth, Harvey Weinstein." Hollywood protecting Hollywood? I'd hardly be shocked.
I structured the argument as a series of escalating questions. Start with the film's premise: is Hansen a hero or a predator? Then introduce the revisionist takes flooding the internet. Then dismantle the false equivalence—the idea that Hansen is "worse than some of these predators" is, as one of my interview clips put it, "a ridiculous idea." Only then did I open the door to motive: if the film is effectively propaganda, whose interests does it serve? I was careful here. I explicitly disclosed that my research found no direct connection between director Lance Oppenheim and the Israeli government or Epstein, beyond the fact that Oppenheim grew up in South Florida near where Epstein operated. I presented the geopolitical angle as a question, not a conclusion.
This is where I tried to be scrupulously fair. I gave Oppenheim's stated artistic intent its due: the film was meant as "a fever dream or cinematic nightmare," inspired by Hansen's answer to Theo Von about how he handles the darkness of his work—"I just bury it deep inside me." Oppenheim claimed curiosity about what happens if you dig into that darkness, about the Hansen of today—the Cameo figure you can pay thirty dollars to sing you happy birthday. I let that explanation stand on its own terms and told viewers it was up to them whether it was honest. I also repeatedly disclaimed any defense of Hansen as a person. And I acknowledged the film's defenders' strongest implicit point: that vigilante-style entrapment journalism deserves scrutiny, and that demonizing the process of catching predators helps no one—which is precisely why I found the film's approach unhelpful.
The larger stakes, as I framed them, are about media literacy and timing. I called Primetime "perhaps the fastest media literacy test for anyone in 2026": if you genuinely believe the film's message is that child predators are fine and Hansen is worse, you've fallen into the trap of any propaganda placed in front of you. And the timing matters. No one in the Epstein files has been investigated, let alone arrested. Predators remain at large, fleeing to Israel "left and right," while a corrupt government does nothing to protect Americans. Against that backdrop, a film that flips the moral script—making the catcher the villain—sends a message that is, at minimum, strange, and possibly sinister.
I ended deliberately without a verdict. "In the end, it's Hollywood. It's just a movie. I wasn't impressed in any way, shape, or form. I'll keep doing the work I do, and people can watch this film and form their own opinions." That's the honest position. I don't know Oppenheim's heart, and I said so. What I do know is that the film's premise inverts a moral hierarchy that shouldn't be inverted, that its subject was treated with a hostility that raises legitimate questions, and that the cultural moment we're in—of unprosecuted elite predation—makes that inversion feel less like art and more like messaging.
So I'll leave you with the questions I left my viewers: Have you seen Primetime? Was there an agenda behind it? Or was it simply the wrong film at the wrong time? Watch it, think critically, and decide for yourself. That, ultimately, is the only defense against propaganda—whether it comes from Dateline, from A24, or from me.