November 25, 2022 – This is a movie that tries to dramatize the nature of the Unabomber, who wa behind 16 bomb attacks and other illegal antisocial activities during the 1980s and 1990s.

The movie, directed by Tony Stone (“Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America”) and starring Sharlto Copley (“Hardcore Henry”) as the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, is based on Ted's own accounts of his thoughts and activites, as well as the historical record. Ted was a prolific writer and left behind 25,000 pages of writings in notebooks, in addition to his published 35,000 word manifesto.

In the movie, Ted comes across as a kind of barbarian. He wants to get back to nature, living in a tiny, 10x12-foot cabin in a remote forested area near Lincoln, Montana. He works odd jobs and is extremely angry at jet planes, snowmobiles, mountain bikes and logging operations in areas near his cabin.

The movie shows Ted shooting at planes, sabotaging logging and sawmill equipment, breaking into remote houses and destroying property. He attends a meeting where David Foreman (founder of the radical environmental organization Earth First!) is the featured speaker. The meeting is a call to arms, where Ted hears the call, “It's time for a warrior society to rise up out of the earth.”

Ted picks up liturature at the meeting, including a “hit list” of companies, organizations and people who are causing damage to the planet. The movie makes it look like he is picking targets out of the hit list for his bomb attacks. Ted is seen preparing and testing his bombs. Ted notes that his first bombs caused little damage, but later, he learned to make more deadly bombs.

Ted is careful not to leave evidence of his attacks behind and he is careful not to be seen, although he is seen planting a bomb targeting the owner of a computer store. Ted's I.Q. was once measured at over 160. He attended college (Harvard) starting at age 16. He also earned masters and doctoral degrees in mathematics from the University of Michigan.

In the movie, however, Ted, despite his intelligence and the death and destruction he causes (killing three, injuring 23 and damaging property), he comes across as just another one of those angry incels. He says he's never had sex with a woman. He's misogynistic, perpetually angry, and doesn't really support himself, or his own activities. He repeatedly asks his mother and brother for money.

In typical angry loner fashion, he keeps to himself and has no friends, except for what seems to be an imaginary friend, Becky (played by Amber Rose Mason of “Butcher's Crossing”) who appears to him from time to time. She vanishes as quickly as she appears, and nobody else seems to see her. If Ted actually does see and talk to Becky, he's even crazier than he seems to be otherwise.

If the movie is trying to make the point that Ted's self image is extremely far removed from reality, then it makes that point abundantly clear. Ted sees himself as an environmental hero, but the reality is that he is just a very dangerous nut. He's not even that interesting. At heart, he is a dull fellow.

At the height of Ted's power, in 1995, the Washington Post agrees to publish Ted's 35,000 word manifesto in return for Ted's promise to stop his bomb attacks. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh both argued for publication, in part, because they hoped someone might be able to identify the writer, based on the Manifesto's contents. That is exactly what happens. Ted's brother, David, recognized Ted's writing in the manifesto, and that leads directly to Ted's arrest.

It is ironic that Ted's greatest achievement, the publishing of his manifesto, also led to his downfall. I've known people just as crazy as Ted Kaczynski, but nobody who is that destructive. Ted's outsized ego, sense of his own self importance, and his belief in his entitlement, those traits are actually widespread, especially since the pandemic started isolating people. He shares those traits with the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Of course, though, Kaczynski would probably not follow President Trump's leadership.

No, Ted is more like those lone gunmen who go on shooting sprees, targeting certain groups, like blacks, Jews or Hispanics. Some people who are mad at the world end up picking on a group of people, then they snap and start killing people who belong to the group they are targeting. Ted's like those shooters.

I am a bit disappointed in this movie. I think Ted is more interesting than he appears to be in this movie. I think the people who investigated this case are probably interesting too, but this movie is not about them. This movie shows Ted going through the motions of attacking people, going through the motions earning money, going through the motions of begging for money, but not much about why he is doing these things.

Sharlto Copley gives a fine performance as Ted, particularly showing his anger and frustration. The cinematography, by Nathan Corbin and Ethan Palmer, is impressive. This film was filmed in the location where Ted used to live in Montana. This film rates a C+.

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