The real-life Hansen has been vocal in his skepticism of the movie, which he said he hasn’t seen because he declined to sign a standard NDA from the studio, A24.

Edgy Exploration of Dark Motivations

Director Lance Oppenheim deploys a terrific ensemble, including Pattinson, Merrit Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Alex Winter and Phoebe Bridgers in an edgy, exploratory thesis on the dark ambitions and darker motivations of “To Catch a Predator” Chris Hansen.

“Can you get tighter in on him?” Hansen demands of the technician editing his latest “To Catch a Predator” segment. He has noticed that when his would-be pedophile prey finally spot him, stepping out of an upstairs bedroom or strolling through the kitchen door of the house designed to ensnare evildoers like them, their nostrils tend to flare.

Hansen wants that quiver to read onscreen. He thinks people will like to see it. Perhaps in the very same spirit of ghoulish voyeurism, director Oppenheim has designed Primetime as a nightmarishly claustrophobic portrait of Hansen as a horror villain, past the point of image degradation, approaching the point at which the portrait becomes all but unrecognizable as a human being.

In cinematographer David Bolen’s greasy, saturated images, livid with grain, the film begins in 2006 when then-NBC head Jeff Zucker (played by real-life Zucker) calls Hansen and his producer Andie (Merritt Wever) into a meeting.

In response to public demand, and rather against Zucker’s own preferences, their show, previously a part of NBC’s “Dateline,” is being moved to its own primetime slot, where it will slug it out for ratings against ABC’s juggernaut “Lost.”

Directed by Lance Oppenheim in his narrative debut, Primetime is set in the mid-2000s. The feature follows Hansen, then the host of Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator,” as he turns the pursuit of suspected child predators into primetime entertainment.

Loosely based on the 2007 “Esquire” article “Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die,” the movie exposes the ethical limits of Hansen’s methods and the collision between journalism, policing, and entertainment.

“To Catch a Predator” ultimately ended in 2008, after facing backlash over its methods of confronting the suspects.

Strange Alchemy

“There’s something magnetic about his presence. I watched the show when I was younger and didn’t think about it,” Pattinson said. “There’s strange alchemy — something he’s doing is the reason people are still talking about that show 20 years later.”

“It’s not to do solely with the subject matter. It was something about the show that was groundbreaking, but then he’s someone centering it. There’s something, even after watching literally thousands of hours of it, you can’t put your finger on it.”

“She’s unbelievable,” Pattinson said. “I didn’t even know Lance and Phoebe were friends. When he suggested her, I was like ‘Phoebe Bridgers? Why don’t we just get the queen?’ Even on the first day, she was so relaxed. She didn’t seem nervous at all. She completely got the tone, and it’s a relatively difficult movie.”

Bridgers, for her part, described the filming process as “super intimidating. When Lance asked me, I was like, ‘No way, dude,’” she recalled. “But it turns out, working with incredible people actually makes it way easier. I thought I was going to wither with all of these guys. Instead, it was just fun and free.”

Oppenheim, 30, is best known for documentaries like “Some Kind of Heaven,” “Spermworld” and the HBO series “Ren Faire.”

Primetime as Docu-Fantasia

He’s described Primetime as a “docu-fantasia,” sort of a blend of his cinematic background. He remembers discovering “To Catch a Predator,” not through the show itself but through parodies on “South Park” and comedy website ebaum’s World.

“When I finally saw ‘To Catch a Predator,’ I was amazed,” Oppenheim said. “Chris Hansen had these one-liners like Tony Montana. But instead of ‘Say hello to my little friend,’ it was ”You see how this looks, right?’ I was always fascinated by the theatricality of the show. What happens when you turn one of the darkest subjects known to humankind into entertainment?”

Pattinson is having quite a year, starring in box office hits like The Drama and Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster The Odyssey as well as Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming “Dune: Part III.”

And his schedule isn’t mellowing any time soon: Pattinson traveled to Venice from London, where he’s filming “The Batman: Part II.”

Pattinson doesn’t seem fazed by the nonstop clip of his work. “When you get the momentum going, it’s strangely not that hard,” Pattinson said. Plus., I just had a baby. I had no desire to go out at night, so suddenly I had twice as much time, which was helpful.”

But he joked that after filming projects back-to-back-to-back, he noticed that his various characters blending together.