Before the capture of the hermit-like Ted Kaczynski in 1995, the pursuit of the so-called Unabomber lasted 18 years, during which time his numerous attacks left three people dead and 23 injured.
It was the biggest domestic terrorist manhunt in US history, and the perpetrator’s subsequent conviction and imprisonment spawned the expected slew of books attempting to drill deep into the mind of a murderer via no-stone-unturned biography.
This film has noticeably fewer ambitions, opting instead to study just two aspects of the Kaczynski story: events leading up to the authorities finally getting their man at his self-built shack in rural Montana, and turning the clock back to his time as a 16-year-old prodigy at Harvard University in the late 1950s.
Consequently, it often feels like two movies woven together, differentiated by distinct colour palettes (warm and oak-y browns for the fussiness of an Ivy League campus, colder blues for the procedural FBI investigations 30 years on).
Were it not for the constant alternating between time periods, viewers could feasibly be watching the opening and closing instalments of a mini-series with the middle episodes missing.
For convenience’s sake, it’s perhaps best to examine the two separately, starting with the slightest and least satisfying; FBI agent Joanne Miller (Shailene Woodley) is convinced Kaczynski is the primary suspect, after the newspaper publication of his manifesto claiming technology was eroding free will prompts a call from his concerned brother and sister-in-law.
Miller is frustrated when her bosses don’t immediately share her views, and sets off on her own in the hope of uncovering more evidence; so far, so boilerplate crime drama, until Kaczysnki’s sibling tells her a little about Ted’s unconventional academic experiences.
Viewers are already aware of questionable goings-on at Harvard at this point, through scenes introducing “Theodore” (an intense but subtle performance by Jacob Tremblay) as an aloof, socially awkward teen allowing his older class mates to crib his advanced maths homework, while harbouring the desire for a career as a full-time philosopher.
Enter Professor Henry Murray (Russell Crowe), a charismatic psychologist who takes the youngster under his wing, persuading him to join a radical debating society that turns out to be the front for a dubious experimental mind control programme bankrolled by unseen government high-ups.
It’s here where the high drama surfaces, with Ted hooked up to machinery reading his brain impulses while constantly humiliated by a debate opponent known only as Mr C (a sneeringly nasty Gus Halper), with only Murray’s assistant (Annabelle Wallis) assuring him everything’s above board.
As the de facto villain of the piece, Crowe offers a masterclass in arrogance and manipulation, a seemingly beyond reproach know-it-all not averse to fudging the experiments’ data to ensure continued funding – but can his treatment of the young student feasibly be the only trigger for Ted’s future crimes?
Without any indication at all as to what happened to Kaczynski during the 1960s and ‘70s, we’re left to assume that the marginalised and disenfranchised Harvard wunderkind simmered with resentment for decades until something snapped and he started making bombs.
At a push, it could be argued that director Janus Metz seeks to draw parallels between Murray and Kaczysnki as two men so entrenched in their beliefs that they’ll go to any lengths to convince the rest of the world; the former through what amounts to psychological torture, the latter through more shockingly visible methods.
In that respect, Unabomber would appear to be a true-life fable of what driven individuals are prepared to do in order to justify their theories (or in Kaczynski’s case a widely published manifesto), yet it remains an incomplete, albeit perfectly watchable puzzle.
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