Predators review: A troubling documentary that confronts our true crime fascination
True crime has never been more popular. We devour these true crime shows, films and podcasts for entertainment, sometimes forgetting that we are watching real things happening to real people. Predators confronts this obsession in a specific way.
David Osit‘s deeply personal film examines the rise and fall of the American TV show To Catch a Predator, which aired within the programme Dateline NBC between 2004 and 2007. In this shocking show (which I could not believe exists), an adult man arrives at a house expecting to have sex with a minor (played by an adult actor) after a period of communication and he is soon greeted by TV cameras and host Chris Hansen. He confronts them about their behaviour and lets them leave the house, at which point they’re arrested by the awaiting police.
Alongside archival footage from episodes of the show, there are many clips of Hansen on chat shows as well as talking head interviews. The most important speakers are those who used to play the minors in the show – finding out what they thought about it now was fascinating – and those related to or connected to a couple of the predators caught by the cameras. And finally, the man himself, Hansen, appears and has to contend with some challenging questions.
Predators poses many ethical and moral questions and offers no easy answers. It lets you draw your own conclusions about what is OK and not OK. Was it acceptable to capture a man’s worst moment and broadcast it across the nation and ruin his life forever? Or does the fact that he’s preying on minors negate that? There are a couple of instances that might make you reconsider your original stance, such as an episode featuring an 18-year-old boy talking to a girl a couple of years younger.
Another interesting aspect is the relationship between the programme and the local police force in the area (the show travelled around the US). The lines blur between entertainment and law enforcement, and the cases are often inadmissible because of the way they were handled on the show. There is also a segment in the middle dedicated to copycats who have continued what Hansen started. It felt like a detour from the main story, but it culminated in a shocking sequence that validated its inclusion.
Predators is a nuanced and startling documentary that will give you a lot of food for thought and remind you that there are real-life consequences for the people in these programmes, and maybe we should think about them a little bit more.
In cinemas from Friday 14th November