Unabomber: Russell Crowe’s new thriller is already number 1 on Netflix
Netflix seems to have a penchant for notorious criminals. Just this month, the streaming service presented its viewers with “Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story,” the latest installment in Ryan Murphy’s serial killer anthology, and now it’s turning its attention to one of America’s most notorious domestic terrorists. And apparently, Netflix subscribers are very interested in this particular part of the story.
The latest crime drama, “Unabomber,” starring Russell Crowe and Jacob Tremblay, has reached the top of Netflix’s global movie charts just days after its release. “Unabomber” premiered on Netflix on September 25th and, according to FlixPatrol, was already the most-watched film worldwide by September 27th. It currently ranks ahead of “Best of the Best,” “The Whisper Man,” “A Minecraft Movie,” and “Black Adam” in the global charts.
What is Unabomber about?
“Unabomber” is a true-crime thriller that blends a psychological character study with a classic police thriller. The film tells the story on two timelines, jumping back and forth between Ted Kaczynski’s early years at Harvard and the FBI investigation that ultimately led to the solving of the Unabomber case.
Jacob Tremblay portrays Kaczynski as a highly gifted teenager at Harvard. The brilliant but increasingly isolated young man becomes the subject of controversial psychological experiments led by Harvard professor Henry Murray (Russell Crowe). These experiments form a central part of the film, which explores the experiences and ideas that shaped Kaczynski before he became the Unabomber terrorist.
The other half of the story takes place decades later, as the FBI tries to identify the man behind a series of bombings. Shailene Woodley plays Joanne Miller, an FBI agent particularly interested in who the Unabomber is and what motivates him. The investigation gives the film its procedural character: the FBI follows leads, while Miller becomes increasingly convinced that understanding Kaczynski’s psychology could help solve the case.
The Harvard scenes fall within the genre of psychological thriller and the grim academic world, while the FBI plot is more akin to a classic police thriller. Some critics point out that the film’s two timelines don’t always blend seamlessly, with the police sequences feeling more familiar than the scenes depicting Kaczynski’s formative years.
Initial reviews were generally quite lukewarm, despite the film’s popularity on streaming platforms. “Unabomber” currently holds a critics’ score of 23% on Rotten Tomatoes. While some reviews praise the performances of Tremblay and Crowe, they criticize the script and its familiar true-crime approach.
