Unabomber: The True Story

Great tv!! Im not a TV series person due to work, lack of time and exhaustion! but I watched this in two days! Fantastic, lOved it.

Sure, this is a straight-forward movie with little emotional debt or gripping scenes, but what do you expect from a based-on-a-true-story TV production ?

The originality of the basic story makes it worth a watch : the method of the UFA bomber, the references to his predecessors and the accuracy with which the mutilations of his victims are described on top of a still explosion as a replacement for graphic scenes.

When you start to think about it, the story is ever so frightening because the setting and the criminal are so common. Without much of a climax, another proof is given that a diabolic mind always comes with a human face.

Above average TV movie that effectively tells the true story of the UNABOMBER terrorist.Nothing fancy here,only direct to the point story telling and adequate acting.It's the story that carries the movie and most people who are familiar with TV movies will be satisfied as long as there is interest to learn about this interesting terrorist case......

One time well known actors such as Dean Stockwell and Robert Hays seem to end up in cheesy "real life" TV movies such as this one. Despite the serious nature of the subject and what happened, this is just plain bad and mediocre from start to finish. Dull and missable.

The Unabomber was Theodore Kaczynski, a domestic terrorist who sent several home made bombs through the mail from the late 1970s onwards.

Kaczynski was a mathematician and academic who developed a critique which opposed industrialisation and modern technology and advocated a form of anarchy which he developed as part of his manifesto.

His bombing campaign lasted from 1978 to 1995 and killed three people and many were injured. His devices were usually aimed at Universities and there were lengthy gaps between the bombing campaigns. He was only brought to justice because his brother recognised his style of writings.

The movie follows a fictionalised postal inspector played by Dean Stockwell who spent years trying to track down the Unabomber. Robert Hays plays the brother, David who at first gets on well with his brother and shares a passion of outdoor living and self sufficiency but over time falls in love with a woman and moves back to the city.

Tobin Bell plays Theodore Kaczynski but we only see him living in the woods in a hut and the film never tells us much about his character. Not for one moment you believe he was a former academic or what was about him that made what was regarded as elegant home made devices. You see scenes of him conversing with his brother but then they fall apart and become distant which happens off screen but its implied because of his decision to get married.

The film was made soon after the Unabomber was convicted. Its a straightforward if slightly fictionalised telling of the story in a movie of the week style. Stockwell is dogged, Hays suddenly suspects his brother but you never get much of an idea as to shy he suspected him in the first place.

The film does shy away from the graphic details of the bombings and places an emphasis on the victims of the Unabomber that were injured. How they were affected by his actions and subsequently rebuilt their lives which is good to see.