Predators

Directed, written, and shot by David Osit, Predators takes us back to the era when both the Internet and reality TV formats were spreading uncontrollably. The film focuses on the To Catch a Predator segment (2004–2007), produced as part of NBC’s Dateline news programme. In the segment, a team led by journalist Chris Hansen lured men with sexual interest in children online and exposed them on national television. The segment sparked a wave of pedophile hysteria, while Hansen became something of a celebrity. As host Jimmy Kimmel put it: “It’s like Punk’d, but for pedophiles.”

The documentary features Hansen, ethnographers, actors who posed as decoys, and police officers involved in the operations. It also follows men caught by the show after their arrests.

This nuanced documentary does more than chronicle the rise and fall of the programme. As the men stepping into the cameras realise their lives are over, and armed police physically assault paralysed suspects, viewers are challenged to reconsider what they are witnessing. Is a program that publicly humiliates sick men on television any better than its targets? The film also raises questions about the responsibility of individuals consuming true crime content.

Osit also reflects on his own motives – why make a documentary giving space to such repulsive material? When the answer emerges, the film leaves the audience silent.

Riikka Haapanen (translated by Anni Rossi)