Netflix's "Unabomber" delves into the formative years and eventual capture of Ted Kaczynski, the domestic terrorist who terrorized the United States from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s. Director Janus Metz's film aims to understand the roots of a domestic terrorist, but it struggles to make a convincing or compelling connection with the audience.
Shailene Woodley portrays FBI Agent Joanne Miller in the film's 1990s-set portions, chronicling the manhunt for Kaczynski, who was living as a recluse in Montana. This narrative thread attempts to build suspense typical of serial killer films, but it falls short, leaning into genre tropes and reducing the significant FBI investigation to a mundane procedural.
The film distinguishes itself with sequences set during the Cold War at Harvard University. Here, a young Theodore Kaczynski, a brilliant mathematics student with philosophical ambitions, is subjected to a psychologically taxing experiment led by Professor Henry Murray. This program, intended to test the robustness of philosophical arguments, devolves into an abusive attempt to break down individuals. The movie posits that Murray's actions fostered the rage within Kaczynski, leading him to target industrial and academic institutions he blamed for societal and environmental decay.
Jacob Tremblay, as the prodigy-era Kaczynski, endeavors to portray the complexities of his character's psychological state but finds the role challenging. Russell Crowe delivers a competent but uninspired performance as the doctor who manipulated his student. While Murray serves as the film's antagonist, Crowe imbues him with a degree of arrogance that narrowly avoids a complete mad scientist caricature. Like Kaczynski, Murray appears driven by a desire for recognition of his intellect, though his actions suggest a more flawed character.
Ultimately, "Unabomber" is a slight and underdeveloped film that fails to adequately explore the psyche of Ted Kaczynski or the magnitude of the investigation that led to his capture. For those seeking to understand the subject matter on Netflix, the 2020 documentary "Unabomber: In His Own Words" is presented as a superior option.