I don’t say this condescendingly in the slightest, but merely as an observation: sometimes with A24 movies, it feels like the casting or the conceit itself can become such a powerful marketing hook that the entire movie is built around it. While I’m familiar with the work of documentary filmmaker Lance Oppenheim and was fascinated to see him make the jump into narrative filmmaking, so much of the marketing for this film felt like a showcase for the idea of, “Robert Pattinson is Chris Hansen, and he’s dialing it up to an 11 out of 10.”
In practice, the absurdity of Pattinson’s performance, and just how primal it becomes, ultimately feels like the point of the entire picture.
The film follows Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) as he and his partner, Andie (Merritt Wever), are tasked by NBC executives with making To Catch a Predator a show capable of competing with ABC and CBS’s primetime programming. We are kept at a distance, watching a man who is, on paper, doing a good thing, but for increasingly trivial reasons like television ratings and personal notoriety.
The supporting cast here is supremely impressive. Through decoys Dan Plumb (Skyler Gisondo) and Del (Phoebe Bridgers), Hansen ambitiously attempts to take the show to the next level, doubling the number of predators they pursue while tackling increasingly risky and disturbing situations.
I found Merritt Wever to be an excellent anchor against Pattinson; she has so many great moments acting opposite him, while also carrying an arc about whether she wants to spend the rest of her life in this form of entertainment and what that decision says about her own mental health. Phoebe Bridgers and Matthew Maher, in smaller roles, are also incredibly effective.
But I think Skyler Gisondo is the real standout here, playing a decoy who is put into increasingly upsetting situations because of his youthful appearance. His chemistry with Pattinson is exceptional, and the duality of his performance; the conflicting emotions of someone participating in the show while being increasingly affected by what he’s asked to do – is incredible. I genuinely think he deserves awards recognition for his work here.
Director Lance Oppenheim has a ball showcasing the sheer 2000s-ness of it all here. This really feels like an origin story for the world we live in today. It’s not merely enough to catch these bad men doing bad things; the footage has to be made commercially accessible, marketed, packaged into programming, and sold to audiences in order to compete with other networks. There’s such an interesting window into the way networks like NBC and ABC were competing for audiences in this market. One of the film’s funniest additions is its depiction of Lost and What Would You Do? as the unlikely rivals to To Catch a Predator; John Quiñones (who is only shown in archival footage) and his disarming kidness almost serves as antithesis to Hansen’s larger-than-life personality of justice.
Interestingly enough, I believe the film is just as conflicted about the series as it is enamored with it. I could be entirely misreading it, but it feels less like a takedown of Hansen (though I can understand why it might be perceived that way) and more like a question of why legitimately good things, like exposing and stopping awful people, have to be packaged into a weekly television lineup in the first place. And, naturally, whether turning justice into entertainment inevitably gets in the way of justice itself.
I find the ideas the film is tackling throughout its runtime fascinating. I appreciate that it never once makes the argument that Hansen is a bad person (he has obviously done tremendous good in the world) but instead interrogates the show’s legacy and, more broadly, why American culture in 2006 was so captivated by the prospect of spending its evenings watching this unfold on television.
All of this culminates in a sometimes bloated and overwhelming, but nonetheless transfixing and extremely stylish observation of the culture that created To Catch a Predator. Oppenheim’s direction is assured and completely riveting, both in its presentation and its outright style, complemented by top-notch performances from Pattinson and Gisondo.
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