Critic Reviews

Crowe is fascinating every moment he’s on-screen. Seeing him here after watching “Nuremberg,” it’s impossible to escape the conclusion that this is an actor experiencing some kind of extraordinary second wind.

A straightforward history lesson elevated by sturdy craftsmanship.

Janus Metz Pedersen's Unabomber is a surprisingly effective Netflix thriller with a slick, stylish aesthetic and some genuinely intense performances that help it rise above your typical direct-to-streaming entertainment. It also unfortunately makes the miscalculation to focus on two different timelines when it should've stuck to one.

It remains an incomplete, albeit perfectly watchable puzzle.

You root for the right people in “Unabomber,” even if the heroine is fictional and the talented Mr. Tremblay makes youthful frustration and rage a bit too sympathetic.

Instead of delving into the full breadth of Kaczynski’s psychological background, Unabomber is content with generic “abusive dad” flashbacks and simplified “frigid mother” anecdotes.

The question of Kaczynski’s mental health remains a matter of historical and clinical dispute. This film makes it look settled precisely where the record does not.

With a movie like this, you have to ask yourself whether something proclaiming itself to be based on a true story has a responsibility to tell the whole truth. Is entertainment enough? Is disregarding Kaczynski's own testimony fair in the name of dramatic intrigue? Ultimately, as a result of all of this, Unabomber is an odd movie that is both fragmented and, frankly, feels a bit problematic.

Unabomber, the third narrative feature from the Danish director Janus Metz, is essentially two movies. Only one of them is good.

Nothing pushes the film forward except a couple of noteworthy performances from a sly Crowe and a temperamental Tremblay (the less said about the wooden Woodley, the better). Both actors rise above the stuffy confines of the film’s hazy cinematography to deliver moments of actual intrigue, especially in a climactic debate between the pair that’s predictable but devastatingly acted.