Director: Janus Metz
Writers: Sam Chalsen, Nelson Greaves
Stars: Jacob Tremblay, Russell Crowe, Shailene Woodley, Annabelle Wallis
Synopsis: A Harvard student becomes the Unabomber after psychological experiments. Years later, an FBI agent’s pursuit reveals how his past shaped his deadly campaign that killed 3 and injured 23 from 1978-1995.
Watching Janus Metz’s Unabomber, I was often reminded of the countless musical biopics. Not because of the tone or filmmaking style, but rather the complete suspension of disbelief required to enjoy these types of films. You can sit and enjoy what transpires, but there is always that feeling there is absolutely no way this is how it actually happened.
Needless to say, a film about Ted Kaczynski should be narratively potent. The film attempts to draw some parallels between Kaczynski’s past and his crimes, while also adding some red-scare government paranoia to the mix. The result is fine and flatly entertaining, but ends up being hollow. You don’t know anything more about Kaczynski than you did before the film began, because you certainly can’t believe any conjectures the film makes about the man.
The film attempts to connect Kaczynski’s time at Harvard to his spree of bombings. Young Kaczynski (Jacob Tremblay) is interested in psychology, and joins a debate study helmed by professor Henry Murray (Russell Crowe). Those “debates” are very clearly a deeper psychological study meant to demean and berate the subjects. The filmmakers attempt to draw a throughline to determine if a monster is born that way or if he is built. Unfortunately, these attempts get absolutely nowhere and fail to land.
Instead of planting the morsels of how this kid could turn into an adult terrorist, the film feels the need to assume this single event was the catalyst to the man he would become. The film talks about all these other inciting events, but doesn’t dare depict them in order to stick to two distinct timelines. In classic film fashion, the narrative jumps between Murray toying with Kaczynski’s psyche in the late ‘50s and FBI agent Joanne Miller (Shailene Woodley),hunting Kaczynski in the ‘90s.
It also doesn’t help that history is well-documented. Kaczynski’s stranglehold on the country’s consciousness lends an air of predictability, as does the film’s genre conventions. The FBI’s general incompetence in finding the Unabomber is only outmatched by the tenacity of agent Miller, the one person who is sure Kaczynski is the guy. Not only do they have the stereotypical male counterpart undermining her at every turn (Alexander Ludwig), her boss (Steven Ogg) is equally dismissive. It’s one step short of “I just got off the phone with the mayor!”
Of course, that doesn’t stop our lady Joanne. She takes some “personal days” to go stake out Kaczynski’s middle-of-nowhere house, hoping to catch something. She has all the evidence she needs to be sure it’s him, but those dang bureaucrats in the FBI just aren’t willing to trust a woman with stone-cold facts. It will surprise absolutely no one that Miller is a fictional person. If she were real, and she did what she did, she would be a household name.
And that’s mostly the problem. All of this would be fascinating to learn if not for the availability of a quick Wikipedia search. Two things are very clear: Kaczynski took part in a study by Murray in the ‘50s, and he was the Unabomber. Everything else can be taken with a massive grain of salt. With that lack of credibility established, it throws every other piece of information into dispute. If the filmmakers wanted to show how a young man eventually becomes a murderer, they achieve that…as long as they think you are stupid.
The actors don’t do anything particularly interesting other than embody their characters the script gives them. Trembley never gets much of a grasp of the character in his youth, vacillating between coy and reserved to boisterous and ranting. Crowe is a very credible academic, but he is obviously up to no good with this study. Woodley gets to do nothing but scream about being right and hide in the woods on occasion. Other actors are peppered in for good measure, including Annabelle Wallis as Murray’s right-hand woman (and assumed lover) and Ludwig and Ogg at the FBI. No one makes any sort of impression worth noting.
While it might be flatly entertaining, Unabomber plays fast and loose with the facts. There is an interesting story to be told around Ted Kaczynski, but it’s not in this film.
