Should you owned a tv between 2004 and 2007, chances are high you stumbled throughout “To Catch a Predator.” The wildly common sting sequence, led by investigative journalist Chris Hansen and watchdog group Perverted Justice, lured would-be intercourse offenders, males seeking to meet underage youngsters, right into a decoy house. There, actors posed as minors earlier than Hansen confronted the suspects on digital camera about their habits and intentions. It made for sensational tv, and it’s straightforward to see why the present lasted so long as it did. No person sympathizes with a toddler predator, and watching their lives implode on nationwide tv carried a grim satisfaction.
David Osit’s unexpectedly gripping documentary “Predators” doesn’t ask us to sympathize with the lads caught on tape. As an alternative, it pulls again the curtain on our tradition’s fixation with the sequence and asks the bigger query: did it truly accomplish something? Typically, prosecutors refused to pursue expenses as a result of the present’s strategies risked rendering the proof inadmissible.
The movie options interviews with individuals concerned within the unique manufacturing, together with Michigan’s personal Chris Hansen, who nonetheless takes delight within the present’s legacy, even because it spawned numerous YouTube copycats. Not like Hansen, these imitators lack the coaching or accountability to take care of people who could also be deeply troubled, unstable, and even suicidal. Osit’s central provocation turns into clear: why is society so keen to look at one other particular person’s life unravel earlier than our eyes?
That’s a heavy query, and one the documentary doesn’t absolutely resolve. No person is excusing the actions of males who believed they had been grooming minors. However ultimately the road between fantasy and actuality must be addressed. In any case, their incriminating on-line conversations had been already sufficient for arrest, lengthy earlier than the cameras rolled or Hansen appeared. In that sense, Osit appears to counsel that “To Catch a Predator” could have amplified pedophilia by turning it right into a cultural spectacle.
“Predators” additionally revisits the fallout that led to the sequence’ eventual cancellation, whereas Osit’s personal motivations for making the movie floor solely on the very finish. By then, the documentary has already pulled us in with its probing, unsettling questions. Finally, it turns the mirror again on the viewers and asks: why are we watching this within the first place?
PREDATORS will open in theaters on Friday, September nineteenth earlier than a streaming launch later this yr.