Primetime: How to catch a poor review

By Alfie Eville

The newest biopic released, and this one covers the controversial television program “To Catch a Predator” and its host Chris Hansen. 

For as oversaturated the biopic genre has been, this film takes a creative and interesting approach, not being too afraid to get experimental and wacky at times, which I can respect. While at times it feels overstylized and unnecessary, it can at least separate itself from the other cookie-cutter films in the same genre that all feel lifeless and safe. 

Similarly to the show itself, the film is extremely daring, not being afraid to tackle the controversial elements of “To Catch a Predator” as well as Hansen’s questionable personal life. The show was undoubtedly controversial, focusing on extremely disturbing stories, and riding a fine line of glamorizing this sort of thing by putting predators in the spotlight. The question of “Was Chris Hansen doing a good thing, or was he in the wrong?” is the crux of the film, and I have some personal disagreements with how it was handled. 

First and foremost, I do not believe in any way that this is meant to fully villainize Hansen. While it portrays him as unstable and abusive at times, it is not saying what he did was 100% wrong or that he is a bad guy. I believe, instead, that it is saying that “To Catch a Predator,” along with its host, was extremely flawed and imperfect in its methods. The film is trying to be clever, but ultimately falls flat. The moral relativism is really challenging when one side is pedophiles and the other is a man trying to bring them to justice. You cannot exactly play devil’s advocate without sounding like you are sympathizing with sinister people that like kids. Just because Hansen did not bring all these predators to justice, or because his means of catching them were controversial, does not taint the grand message of “Pedophilia is bad; we should do something about it.” Hansen did more for bringing these evil people to justice than most can say they have. 

Critics of Hansen can sit on their couches and complain, but at least he was out there getting his hands dirty, confronting, humiliating and, oftentimes, jailing real pedophiles in America. 

So, although the themes from Lance Oppenheim are understandable and I can see his perspective, it was done extremely poorly and, at times, gave sympathy to the predators being caught. 

There is one scene in particular that was rather awful. Hansen and his team confront a rabbi who was caught on the show, but then he pushes back and accuses Hansen himself of being immoral. Not only is this an ironic “pot calling the kettle black” scene, but this rabbi is, in a sense, the mouthpiece for the theme of the movie. Was it really a good idea to have the pedophile character orate the message? Is the audience expected to be agreeing, or even sympathizing with what he is saying? This is what I mean when I say that the film goes about its delivery in a completely wrong fashion. 

Moving away from the controversial stuff, Robert Pattinson, who plays Chris Hansen, did a pretty good job, but in terms of his entire career, I think it was perfectly adequate. Nothing Oscar worthy — nothing more than a good vocal impression. The trailers really overhyped his performance as being something special, but, to me, it is no different than your buddy that can do a really good impression of your favorite character or celebrity.

The rest of the movie was similar to Pattinson’s performance, in that it was good, but just nothing spectacular. I found myself thinking “That was it?” when it ended, unimpressed by the final scene. 

I will probably forget about most of what happened in this movie in a few months, and just remember the memes online and the infamous “You see how this looks, right?” line from the trailer that got people going crazy. This movie gets 3 stars out of 5.

Alfie Eville is a sophomore history and secondary education major