Not to be confused with Dan Trachtenberg’s latest Predator film coming later this fall, David Osit’s Mayor follow-up Predators is one of the most essential documentaries of the year. Exploring the thorny moral complications of To Catch a Predator and Chris Hansen’s approach to journalism, as well as the copycat imitators it has spawned, MTV Documentary Films picked up the Sundance selection for a September 19 release. Ahead of the roll-out, the first trailer and poster have arrived.
Here’s the synopsis: “A cultural sensation from its inception in the early 2000s, Dateline NBC’s candid-camera investigative series To Catch a Predator ensnared sex offenders and lured them to a film set, where they would be interviewed and arrested while cameras rolled. The show was a hit and transformed its host Chris Hansen into a moral crusader and TV star, while spawning a worldwide industry of imitators and vigilantes. But why did we watch so voraciously — and why do we continue to devour its web-based, clickbait-driven offshoots? Looking back on the show and the countless franchises it spawned, filmmaker David Osit turns his camera on journalists, actors, law enforcers, academics, and ultimately himself, to trace America’s obsession with watching people at their lowest. PREDATORS is a chilling, edge of your seat film that delves into the murk of human nature to observe hunter, predator, subject and spectator alike, all ensnared in a complicated web of entertainment as far as the eye can see.”
Dan Mecca said in our Sundance review, “Filmmaker David Osit gives viewers a lot to wrestle with in Predators, his documentary about the reality show To Catch a Predator, which captured the zeitgeist of the early 2000s. In the show, host Chris Hansen confronted adult men who had arrived to a location (following an online chat correspondence) with the alleged intention of engaging in sexual activity with a minor. The set-up was, in fact, a sting orchestrated by the show’s producers in collaboration with local law enforcement. It made for compelling television and was advertised like so, as well as a public good. Predators wrestles with the legacy of the program, the ethical questions it raised, and the copycat vigilantes it inspired. The show was cancelled not long after suspect Texas assistant district attorney Bill Conradt committed suicide as cameras and cops were descending on his home. A cascading level of criticism was soon drawn against the production, putting into question whether the evidence obtained on camera was, in fact, admissible in a court of law. Hansen, after all, is not law enforcement.”
See the trailer below.
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