Unabomber

Attempting to decipher Ted Kaczynski’s methods and motives, Unabomber winds up sharing its subject’s schizophrenic symptoms.

This vague and unconvincing biopic offers a surface-level look at the misdeeds of the notoriously reclusive Kaczynski, whose 20-year reign of domestic terror claimed three victims, leading to his 35,000-word manifesto being published in daily newspapers and sketches of his face behind aviator sunglasses distributed nationwide.

Toggling between two parallel storylines set more than three decades apart prevents either half from generating much suspense, either as a character study of a vengeful loner or a true-crime procedural about the most expensive manhunt in FBI history.

The film begins in 1996, when a young investigator (Shailene Woodley) is called in to help solve the case, which primarily involves homemade bombs being sent to unsuspecting victims in industry and academia. She zeroes in on Kaczynski, who has spent most of his life off the grid in the Montana wilderness.

Much of the story is told via flashbacks to the late 1950s, when Ted (Jacob Tremblay) is a 16-year-old aspiring philosopher at Harvard under the tutelage of charismatic professor Henry Murray (Russell Crowe).

Despite an advanced intellect, he’s socially awkward and insecure, confessing to Murray and his assistant (Annabelle Wallis) that he lacks a sense of belonging.

“So many people live their lives without thinking about what it means or how their actions affect other people,” Ted tells them. “I think we can treat each other better.”

They position Ted as a mathematics prodigy while also luring him into a barbaric psychological debating experiment that tests power and submission. Eventually, he turns bitter and hostile and plots revenge against the society that he feels rejected him.

As directed by Janus Metz (All the Old Knives), the film revisits a tense and paranoid time before the proliferation of mass shootings and social media, but doesn’t provide much new insight.

The screenplay by Sam Chelton and Nelson Greaves (Unfriended) dives into Ted’s troubled family life and other influences that shaped his hostile worldview, although it doesn’t yield any proof, only speculation.

Kaczynski saw himself as some sort of revolutionary. Yet despite a committed performance by Tremblay (Sovereign) in the title role, Unabomber is just the opposite.

Rated R, 97 minutes.