“I’m Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC.” In the early 2000s, those six words instilled fear into the hearts of child predators and an unexplainable glee in everybody else who watched unconventional stings unfold on television from the comfort of their living room sofas. Law Enforcement interactions with criminals have been an endless source of entertainment content for decades, both in fiction and reality, with Cops being among the most successful unscripted series in history.
To Catch a Predator, the subject of documentarian David Osit’s new film, differed in its focus on catching child predators and its use of Chris Hansen, a television personality and journalist, at the center of its criminal operations.
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Predators plot
From 2004 to 2007, To Catch a Predator captivated audiences and became a cultural phenomenon. Its premise was simple: adult but young-looking decoys were utilized to trick child predators into thinking they were meeting an underage boy or girl for a sexual interaction. In reality, they were speaking with law enforcement officers and meeting up with Chris Hansen, who would present them with the chat logs and question them on their intentions. Predators takes a behind-the-scenes look at the unconventional reality series and asks the difficult questions about its own morality.
Predators review
David Osit (Mayor, Thank You For Playing) brings such a rawness to his examination of To Catch a Predator and the audience’s obsession with seeing suspected pedophiles getting caught in the act. Many of the people watching the show were parents, and as parents, it’s terrifying to know that these people exist and simultaneously reassuring to see them apprehended. It’s a moralistic muddy area that Predators never shies away from, making for a fascinating, compelling, and thought-provoking experience.
Osit admits to himself being the victim of sexual abuse as a child, which makes his examination of the Dateline NBC series and its treatment of offenders all the more impactful. The documentary walks a very thin line, never attempting to justify the perpetrator’s actions (there is absolutely no justification for it), but desperately seeking to find the answer to why people do such horrible things. The unsatisfying answer to that question is very likely that we’ll never know, and that the perpetrators themselves don’t have an answer.
The show was inevitably canceled following the suicide of a suspect as police attempted to apprehend him. It was a dark splotch on the name of a show that was already shrouded in darkness, most of which remained unnoticed until years later. Osit questions the integrity of the show at its core, entertaining millions through the use of such bleak subject matter and exploiting human beings on the worst days of their lives. In the film’s third act, Osit poses those questions to Hansen directly in an interview that remains cordial but is visibly uncomfortable for both parties and unexpected by Hansen.
Is Predators worth watching?
Predators is going to be most effective when viewed by somebody old enough to remember when To Catch a Predator reigned supreme on cable television, or those who have discovered it in the age of streaming and viral YouTube clips. A familiarity with the source material goes a long way. Predators takes viewers behind the scenes, showing the aftermath of the televised stings and the impact they had on the cast and crew involved. It’s a difficult watch at times, as it asks the difficult questions, but, just like To Catch a Predator, it’s a fascinating documentation of the exploitative nature of the entertainment industry and the lowest horrors that humanity is capable of.
