User reviews

Greetings again from the darkness. It's been more than 25 years since The Unabomber was arrested. The composite sketch of Theodore John Kaczynski wearing sunglasses and a hoodie became an iconic image on its own, and he was the target of the longest and most expensive manhunt in the history of the FBI. There have already been two crime series focused on Kaczynski. Netflix aired "Unabomber: In His Own Words" (2020) and Discovery had "Manhunt: Unabomber" (2017). Do we need to know more about this monster whose bombs killed 3 people and injured 22 others over a 17-year period? Well, writer-director Tony Stone and co-writers Gaddy Davis and John Rosenthal believe so.

A prologue with text details most of what we already know - Kaczynski was a Harvard educated math genius who dropped out of society and moved to the Rocky Mountains in Montana. Following that, the opening sequence sets the stage as we see Kaczynski hiding in the forest eyeing a family zipping around on snow mobiles. This is all accompanied by Blanck Mass music that falls into the category I call 'doom-droning'. It's ominous music so blatant that no one could possibly think anything good is about to happen. And of course, nothing good does happen.

Sharlto Copley (DISTRICT 9, 2009) stars as Kaczynski, and if there is a complaint to be made against this movie, it's that Copley's performance is so strong that we begin to see this monster as a human being. Living 25 years in a ten by twelve-foot backwoods cabin he built with his brother, Kaczynski doesn't make the case for nature vs nurture, but rather nature vs tech intrusions. He seems mostly fine in his isolation until disturbed by the seasonal snow mobiles, four-wheelers, jet noise, or ongoing lumber harvesting. Of course, he was never really fine. He was a sexually frustrated misogynist who became a dysfunctional and delusional and dangerous man. In a voiceover, he states, "I act merely for my desire for revenge."

Much of the film is pulled directly from the 25,000 pages of coded journals found in the cabin. The deluded thoughts of a man who considered modern technology to be evil and used a hit list to identify the targets for his homemade bombs ... bombs that often injured unintended victims. Copley plays him as a wide-eyed guy with the expected undercurrent of intelligence masked by one so unhinged he personally delivers his complaint letter to the customer service desk of the phone company - over a few dimes and quarters lost over time.

The film was shot on location on the Montana land owned by Kaczynski. The cabin has been expertly recreated and cinematographer Nathan Corbin does a terrific job in catching the beauty of nature, as well as the elements that so bothered Kaczynski. Frequently wearing sunglasses and riding his bicycle into town to visit the library, we also see him listening to classical music on the radio - and begging his mother and brother (the one who tipped off the FBI) for money (to finance his bombing trips). The film is well written, professionally directed, expertly photographed, and well performed. However, I can't shake the uneasiness over whether we really want to see one of our most unconscionable monsters humanized to this degree.

In theaters and On Demand beginning February 18, 2022.

Being a true crime fan and having seen several documentaries about the unabomber I was looking forward to seeing this movie. After the opening credits, and given the initial approach I thought I would be in the presence of an intimate film. An "Author's Film". And this biography has everything to make that happen. But in my opinion the film falls into too many elements that have little to do with the nature of Ted himself as well as his odyssey. Even chronologically. I think the film would be more effective if it had an unknown actor. Although technically the film is excellent, highlighting the photography, although the soundtrack is also very adequate, the truth is that seeing the film as a whole, one gets the feeling that in reality, this could have been another film that "could have been" . Anyway good but not excellent.

Tries to protray the man as a pervert and a climate activist, absolute rubbish. Wouldn't waste my time on this propoganda. Just more historical distortion to fit the narrative of today. Try actually reading books before watching this awful representation.

The screenplay was terrible - it felt like it got lost trying to figure out if it wants to be a documentary or a movie. Tony Stone's directing made matters worse with very little substance and a whole lot of filler to fill in the run-time. The endless NatGeo scenes of nature, animals and wilderness just bored me and was all irrelevant to the story. Ya we get it, he's an off-grid guy. Then, all the interesting parts - the guts of Ted K's story, were weak, too short and lacked much needed insight and impact. This all could've just been condensed into a 20-30 min short docu-story. Aside from Sharlto Copley's decent performance, this film was a boring sloth and rather pointless.

Great acting piece from Copley who carries the entire film on his own.

If anyone else was in the lead role this movie would be a 5.

The unabomber story is better told elsewhere but not as well acted.

I've previously watched the excellent series Manhunt: Unabomber so felt compelled to see this through. It's factual but very very slow and light on detail about Ted K's targets and focusses far too much on his backwoodsman lifestyle imo.

Nevertheless a fascinating story about the largest manhunt in FBI history even though we get to see very little of it.

The Unabomber was coming up with fascinating ideas on society from as early as the 1970's and as time goes by, those ideas become more prescient and more true. So, how does this film go about exploring these great insights into society? How does this film explore the intellect of its subject? The sad answer is, it ignores it.

Ted K, was a fantastic opportunity to do something intellectually stimulating, but for some reason, a choice was made to ignore the intelligence and make the story about a crazy hobo who lives in the forest, struggles with sexual frustration and makes mail bombs because he can't find a girlfriend.

If I were conspiratorial, I could easily imagine the powerful overlords of our society were getting so worried about people reading the Unabomber's manifesto, that they set out to destroy his character by making this film.

The film is competently produced and Sharlto Copley's performance is strong; the problem is the approach. This film didn't attempt to study Ted Kaczynski's character, they set out to assassinate it.

"Modern technology is the worst thing to happen to the world. And to promote its progress is nothing short of criminal."

The film is based on Theodore Kaczynskis, a.k.a The Unabombers criminal life. Ted (Copley) was a doctor of Mathematics who ended up living in the wilderness for 20+years, compelled to this way of life due to modern technologies impact on the earth. Ted, after seeing all the land everywhere he goes being chewed up by modern industry, decides to take personal revenge on western society.

In his campaign of revenge Ted planted 15 successful bombs from 1978 to 1995, killed 3 people and wounded dozens of others.

This is an isolationist and minimalist film through and through. The director and writer did delve here and there into Teds motivations, but in most cases they opted to show his isolation and conflicts with his family and with modern society instead.

The film has exceptionally clean visuals, but nothing special or new to create a sense of dynamism to this story. Its all laid out procedurally and linearly, heavily relying on the letters that Ted wrote himself.

The film was a touch too long in my view, and would have been a more entertaining docufilm / biography piece if it were 30mins shorter. Or if there were more portions on the victims and their struggles this would have panned this out.

Some interesting aspects were Copleys acting and the fact that they filmed on the same land where Ted lived himself.

Worth a watch for some of the clean landscape shots and Copleys acting rather than anything else.

Loved the veer away from the 'American cop show' approach, letting us uncomfortably live in Ted's environment. Sharlto Copeley is excellent, believable and disturbing. Arthouse style, assumes a knowledge, loved it.

"Ted K" is a true-crime biopic on Ted Kacynski, aka The Unabomber, whose social awkwardness drove him from being a maths prodigy to an impoverished hermit in rural Montana where without plumbing or electricty he grew increasingly angry at technologic advances represented by planes, snow-mobiles, loggers etc disturbing his tranquility (& destroying modern life). This drove him from low-level vandalism to his infamous '78-'95 mail-bomb campaign that killed three & injured 23. Co-writer Tony Stone directs with a curious low-budget '80s style and relies heavily on Sharlto Copley's lead performance - but Copley delivers. Quirky yet interesting.

When I see garbage like this I have to wonder what the ulterior motives are of those who wrote, produced and directed it. There is little mention of what led to this man's tormented life, specifically the mk ultra experiments that were performed on him at the very university he attended that some argue created the damaged human being we know as the unabomber. He is portrayed as an outsider in school, yet he was active in school groups. He is portrayed in this movie as a simpleton yet he was a mathematics professor and successfully evaded the FBI for 20 years while performing his acts of terrorism. What I suspect is that this is an attempt to marginalize this man to provide some form of comfort for society. I can't speak for the whole film as I was too disgusted to watch it in its entirety.

I would recommend people read some of the NY Times, NY Magazine, ABC News pieces looking into Kaczynski's own writings and statements to friends. This would make it clear that the simplistic analysis in this film as well as many other shallow treatments of his views/rationalizations ignore the clear evidence that Kaczynski was an anarchist, climate activism terrorist, and if classifiable at all, would be far left.

This bizarre treatment him as some kind of incel is simply not fact based.

I can tell many didn't like how Ted was portrayed in the movie. It looks like the script writers tried to deep dive into what they thought was the catalyst for his actions.

I don't see them portray his personality as being sexually motivated. It looks like those scenes were just another form of frustration from being isolated. His IQ, his family, his struggles with women, and his hatred of many of the things we consider normal in civilization, all added layers to his isolation. The film really highlighted this.

Sharlto also transmitted the selfishness that embodies people like this. He feels motivated to save society and altruistic, but in reality he takes from his family emotionally and financially. Sharlto portrays himself as expecting help because they owe him, not because they love him.

This movie shines in the way the camera captures the natural light of the woods where he lives. It gives the viewer an appreciation for what Ted likely saw living there. The snow, the trees, and the simple life in the cabin all contribute to a feeling that we all might be missing something in the doldrums of everyday life (Do we even know that we aren't happy staring at phones, TVs, and computer screens all day?). The scenery was the star of the movie.

My only complaint was the bombing scenes. With so much quiet or long-winded exposition, it would have been nice to juxtapose the violence in a way that consistently showed the hatred and malice that these acts are motivated by.

All in all, it was a well done movie. It appears that many have put Ted on pedestal that he never put himself on.

It's a great story and great character, but done with a very weak approach, just terrible editing with a mix of crossfades and alternating sequences with no substance or meaning, like the classic cliché of using slow-motion for explosions. It's very repetitive with scenes showing the damage being done to the mountains and the noise pollution or the phone conversations he has with his brother. Also the music goes all over the place, it doesn't have a solid approach, only in the last part of the film it seems to stick to a synthesizer that doesn't really fit at all. I mean, in a way it builds tension, but if this is Ted's point of view (and it is because we experience his fantasies as real as he does) he would probably be against using machines to make music. All this shows there's no particular direction or sensitivity, no point of view, no depth. I think that without all these effects and post-production paraphernalia it could be a very powerful film. Sharlto Copley is amazing, but the film doesn't really let him shine. The best scene is probably when he goes to the phone company to make a complaint. Maybe a more organic and natural approach with the music and a minimalist editing or camera work could also make the film better.

A movie should provide some sort of entertainment or if it's a documentary it should inform or educate the viewer. The director can't seem to figure out what he wants to do and it ends up giving us nothing. There are no dates or history for the viewer to follow along in the Ted K story and it just wanders aimlessly through scene after scene until it abruptly ends.

The entertainment value is really low, and if you've watched Unabomber then you know most if not all of the story and this adds nothing. Most of the film is an actor in the wilderness cursing a airplanes in the sky and loggers in the woods.

A one star review means that the film should never have been made. This is a good example. For anyone interested in the story, this gives very few details and just throws quotes at us hoping that they create mystery. For the rest of us who actually watched any of the previous shows they will be completely disappointed as this adds nothing new.

The question is, why would a director make a lackluster film about a person without any new information, 25 years after the incident? There is nothing of value here.

Went in blind, no trailers or reviews, so if you can, probably the single most likeliest way to enhance your viewing.

Old enough to remember what one single person can do to disrupt daily life and a menial task in way most take for granted; going to the mailbox without fear or anxiety. How Kasinsky got there is not only important it sets the foundation, and sadly too late, for the mindset of "see something, say something"

Blanck Mass killer drones/carpenter-esque, at times--- and surrealistic psychedelica 80's filming style made this pure catnip for my mind that craves cinema like this.

It also shows the radicalization and mental health, and how it can warp perception while also reminding that terrorism is a home grown issue, no matter who says differently.

Highly recommended.

An unmitigated mess. Seriously, it was an overly dreamy incoherent film that never really came to terms with what film it wanted to tell.

It seemed like they were more interested in getting a nomination for Sharlto Copley than to tell an engaging story that didn't make me fall sleep. This could have been done so much better.

I am 45 minutes into the movie and barely anything has happened. I know things will eventually happen which is the only reason why I am still watching it. So if you like very slow movies in which nothing happens in nearly an hour (and who does?) then maybe you will enjoy this.

Very disappointingly slow.

Update: Just finished watching it. The movie never got more interesting, never got better. It is a bizarre film that left out all of the interesting parts and was slow from start to finish. Incredibly painful to sit through.

1/10 One of the worst movies I've seen this year.

By mr copley , delving and diving deep into the caracter of ted kazynski aka the una bomber. Its made on a dime or less budget, filmed a shot in almost authentic natural environment, and gives you a gawping inclusion of a frustrated lonely on the outer edge of sanity personal tragedy that led to 3 deaths and at least 22 injured people by sending death by mail.

If you hope that this is a documentary about mr ted, then look somewhere else, this is more the hypertheoretical human genious mastermonster and a reflection over his sturdy conviction of the industrialistic nations of the world, the greedy capitalistic systems that rots and damages our natural resources, polluting water and wrecks forests and landscapes for the thrill of a dollar earned. Its also a look into the madmans manifesto that became published in media as a try to stop the mailterror.

Its a well acted, filmed and edited story that will grab your intestines if youre a tree lover and environmentalist. But even though that the grumpy old man feels that they are just grasping the surface in order to be a biopic. Anyway its a film to watch due to brilliant acts of mr copley, a recommend.

What did I just watch?!? This was absolutely awful. I don't understand how there can be any positive reviews for this movie. Everything about it was weird and awful. There was not one positive thing I can say about it. I want these two hours of my life back. The acting, the music, and just everything about it seemed so off. It is so different from anything I've ever read or seen about the unabomber and not in a good way. I've seen lots of compliments about the lead actor in this movie and I just don't get it. I really disliked watching him. If you have the choice between watching this or Manhunt unabomber, watch that instead. It's so much better.

This is the story of Kaczynski's life in the forest. Really not much to it other than some stunning acting. Its a story we don't like talking about because we can see this illness in ourselves in the worst points in our life. Its also about another problem we don't want to discuss. How some men who don't find love can become horrible and dangerous.

Edit: I watched the doc, Kaczynski: in hes own words, and had to change my rating from a 7 to a 5. This movie makes Kaczynski a character deserving of some sympathy and a little relatable. He isn't. He is of the weakest of character. He projected all his short comings on others, even the few who loved and looked out for him. Super max is too light of punishment for this worm in a mans body. I think this movie is a bit of a deception, but then if it was realistic, there wouldnt be much of a movie.