David Osit’s stomach churning documentary Predators forces viewers to reconsider the entertainment value some find within the true crime genre. It’s not necessarily a full on take-down of its subject, nor is it a celebration of the good such examinations of crime can lead to, but rather something a lot more complicated and murky. Predators started out as a film where Osit was seeking answers to a very specific question, and it spoils nothing to say that he never finds it. But what he uncovers by looking back on the complex legacy of one of true crime television’s biggest hits is more than enough to give viewers pause to ask bigger questions about the dark side of human nature.
From 2004-2007 (and beyond if we’re counting re-runs) the NBC Dateline offshoot To Catch a Predator was a ratings hit, cultural phenomenon, and in many ways, a necessary bit of caution to kids and parents on the then still relatively new internet. Journalist Chris Hansen would head up a team whose job it was to entrap potential sexual offenders and pedophiles via online conversations that would eventually lead to meet ups designed to bring these criminals into the light. When the marks showed up expecting sexual dealings with underage boys and girls, hidden cameras would be rolling as Hansen and the film crew emerged from a side room to confront the deviant. There would be an awkward conversation where Hansen would ask the suspect what they were expecting or thinking, before releasing them to the police who’d be waiting outside to make the arrest.
It was compelling television; something that existed in the strange space between public service and oddball entertainment. Described by Jimmy Kimmel as “Punk’d for pedophiles” and one of Osit’s interview subjects as “Candid Camera for criminals,” To Catch a Predator thrived on the viewer’s desire to watch these evil men squirm, stumble, and embarrass themselves. The allure of watching someone’s life get ruined in real time is the ultimate in car crash television, and the nature of the show itself made those feelings justifiable. There’s no justifiable reason for an older man to seek sex from a child. The show and Hansen’s droll “why don’t you just take a seat over here” approach gave the viewer a free pass to giggle at and cheer for the destruction of these predators.
Osit’s film doesn’t deny that, and halfway through Predators when the director achingly explains why he’s making this documentary in the first place, he cops to feeling that same sort of comfort when seeing a villain get their just desserts. Osit doesn’t argue the overall effectiveness of getting a lot of bad people off the streets and away from children, but once he starts to examine raw footage of the show, talking with the now grown actors who played child decoys, parsing the show’s lasting legacy, and looking into how Hansen currently operates (still doing relatively the same thing, just away from NBC), the filmmaker finds some deeply compelling and unsettling undercurrents that make one wonder if the show was truly about justice or just popping some quick ratings.
Predators examines how Hansen and the show’s producers had to scrub any sense of humanity and complicated emotions from broadcasts, or else the illusion of the show as a hard-hearted exposé would be ruined. The awkward interactions between Hansen, police, and the suspects are much more emotionally charged and less comedic than they appear on television, especially in cases where the entrapped hovers around the age of eighteen instead of being a much older, more devious sort of creep. To make matters worse, the entire legacy of the show bringing people to justice is inherently flawed. Yes, To Catch a Predator publicly named and shamed many abusers, but as one former Texas district attorney tells Osit, many of the cases brought by To Catch a Predator couldn’t be prosecuted because the first person the criminal talked to was a TV show personality, not an officer of the law. In many cases there was public scorn and ruined livelihoods, but no actual jail time for the offenders because television justice and actual legal ramifications are two different things.
The show’s legacy weighs heavily on the young people used as decoys and some of its producers, with one former actor still suffering from a botched sting in Murphy, Texas in 2006 that still went to air anyway. The impact of To Catch a Predator also lives on via scores of DIY online vigilantes who use similar pretences to lure abusers into the light, but with far less grace, due diligence, and support from law enforcement. One such interview subject who idolizes Hansen’s work, straight up tells Osit that he’s strictly doing this for the clicks and the money, thusly profiting from the high viewers get from watching someone doing something ostensibly good. In his own interview with Osit, Hansen distances himself from this part of the original show’s influence, but also flatly refuses to address criticisms of the show’s tactics, recently starting up the same kind of series under different branding. For Hansen, the good outweighs the bad by a significant amount.
And to some degree, it feels like Osit would begrudgingly agree, although he feels bad for admitting as such. Predators proves that a show can be lauded for the good it produced, but also criticized for going about things the wrong way and adopting and all or nothing approach to extreme journalism. It’s less police work that went into the show and those created by all of Hansen’s online imitators, and more stunt work; people putting themselves in dangerous situations without much of a safety net. Predators shows how it’s not the aim of the show that was the problem, but the way that all parties involved failed to fully grasp the complexities and implications of what they were doing for the sake of viewership. It’s a deeply personal work for Osit, and as Predators progresses, he clearly becomes more disappointed and disillusioned at the many shortcomings he finds and an overall lack of accountability all around. And by the time Predators wraps up, viewers will likely feel similarly trampled.
Predators opens at TIFF Lightbox in Toronto on Friday, October 3, 2025. There will be a virtual Q&A with filmmaker David Osit following the 1 pm screening on Sunday, October 5.
