September seems to be the season when Netflix clears out most of what it doesn’t really intend on having as its high-profile Oscar contenders. Even one of its better offerings that kicked off awards season a few years ago, Fair Play, still ended up not making much of an impact in the awards race despite being generally well liked. Well, we won’t have that problem with Unabomber, because I can’t imagine critics piling onto this movie. It’s deeply unsatisfying, aimless, and rather pointless. It’s a film that isn’t sure what its structure should be, how much of either story it wants to tell, or what perspective it actually wants to highlight. Director Janus Metz, who previously directed All the Old Knives, another film I didn’t care for, seems to have been handed a basic manifesto: Netflix wanted a Unabomber movie, and everything else be damned.

I’m somewhat impressed with how quickly Jacob Tremblay is being asked to grow up, considering that just last year he was still playing a high school student in Sovereign opposite Nick Offerman, where he was excellent. Here, he’s been upgraded to Harvard student as he portrays a young Ted Kaczynski, long before he became the scraggly loner in the woods whose arrest became one of the defining images of the Unabomber story. Unabomber tries to balance two timelines simultaneously. One is a little like this year’s Tony, where filmmaker Matt Johnson decided to take a formative period out of Anthony Bourdain’s life and explore that rather than making a traditional cradle-to-grave biopic. Unabomber similarly seeks to find the formation of Kaczynski and perhaps what sparked his eventual turn toward violence. But that’s only half the movie, and oddly enough, it’s the less compelling half.

The other storyline follows FBI agent Joanne Miller, played by Shailene Woodley, during the hunt for the Unabomber. Miller is a fictional character, but she’s also the person I found myself wanting the movie to follow. She’s not necessarily in charge of the case, although it’s clear through her basic use of intelligence and common sense that she probably should be. At one point, the FBI targets an uneducated plumber, and Joanne immediately points toward the Unabomber’s writing, his excellent grammar and lack of spelling errors, as evidence that they may have the wrong guy, even though their suspect possesses materials that could be used to make a bomb. Woodley’s storyline is far stronger and more compelling than the actual reason this movie seems to exist, which is its exploration of Ted’s past. The unintended lead ends up driving the movie.

That past centers heavily on Harvard professor Henry Murray, played by Russell Crowe, and the controversial psychological experiments Kaczynski participated in while he was a student. The movie leans very hard into the idea that Ted enters this environment believing he’s been selected because he’s uniquely intelligent, only to find himself subjected to attempts to break him down psychologically. Eventually he seems to become aware that he’s being used, yet continues participating anyway, which is one of the few points where this half of the movie becomes genuinely interesting. Unabomber very deliberately wants us considering whether Kaczynski was, at least partially, a monster that America helped create. Had he never been subjected to these experiments, would he still have become the Unabomber? Nobody can answer that question, but the movie is far more interested in asking it than interrogating it from multiple directions. Its argument becomes so dominant that the young Ted we’re given is comparatively sympathetic, socially awkward and uncomfortable, but never someone who feels destined to become the man responsible for a decades-long bombing campaign.

Tremblay does the best he can with this early-stage version of Kaczynski. The problem is that he doesn’t get to play Ted across enough time for us to see that full transformation. He doesn’t get to go all the way to the crazed loner living alone in the woods, the version of Kaczynski that became embedded in the public consciousness when he was finally captured. Tremblay instead gets a relatively sympathetic young man being manipulated by people more powerful than he is. That’s not necessarily an invalid approach to the character, and Tremblay isn’t bad. He’s continuing to take roles that clearly interest him and push him forward as an actor. I’m sure playing Ted Kaczynski seemed like another potential feather in his cap. Unfortunately, I don’t think enough people are going to watch Unabomber and come away thinking this is the performance that should launch Tremblay toward even more challenging adult roles. That’s not for his lack of trying. The movie simply gives him the wrong slice of Kaczynski’s life if what you’re looking for is a truly transformative performance.

Russell Crowe, meanwhile, is lost in a thankless role as Henry Murray. Crowe has given much stronger performances in worse films. The Pope’s Exorcist immediately comes to mind, a movie he apparently keeps wanting to make a sequel to. Here, he seems almost confused about what the role actually is, playing Murray surprisingly straight. There’s no maniacal villain lurking underneath the performance, just an egotistical professor who thinks extremely highly of himself. The movie wants Murray to feel psychologically dangerous, but Crowe never comes across as particularly manipulative or controlling. At times, he almost seems more likely to be manipulated by Ted than vice versa. Woodley, on the other hand, is strong, so I hope she takes that compliment and runs with it. This comes right on the heels of another mediocre Netflix film, The Whisper Man, where I thought Michelle Monaghan was easily the strongest element. Once again, the woman who isn’t really supposed to be the center of the movie becomes the person I would rather be watching.

I wish I could say a lot about Unabomber worked, but really not much of it does. Even structurally, Metz can’t find the rhythm between these two timelines. We bounce backward and forward with little regard for whether the story actually requires it at that particular moment. Some directors might have chosen to lean harder into the FBI hunt, which is easily the more naturally suspenseful material. Others might have abandoned that almost entirely and made a focused psychological drama about Kaczynski’s Harvard years. Instead, Metz and screenwriters Sam Chalsen and Nelson Greaves try to do both, leaving each storyline fighting for oxygen. Marco Beltrami’s score is present without being particularly memorable, and even the editing feels less like an elegant interweaving of two timelines than a movie continually interrupting itself.

You can see the problem almost immediately. Early in the film, with the Unabomber already active, a woman retrieves a package from the mail, brings it inside and hands it to her husband. I knew exactly where the scene was going, and Metz tries to increase the tension by introducing an adorable little girl into the room so the audience gets that sinking feeling of wondering whether the child is going to be caught in the explosion too. It’s such an obvious choice. A more interesting opening, at least for me, would have been someone nervously opening a package because they’re afraid it might be from the Unabomber, only for absolutely nothing to happen. Capture the panic. Capture the paranoia. Capture that period when an ordinary object arriving in the mail could suddenly feel threatening. We already know what movie we’re watching. It’s called Unabomber. We don’t need an explosion to explain that bombs are coming. There will be plenty of opportunities for that. Showing the fear surrounding something that doesn’t explode might have told us far more about the atmosphere Kaczynski created than sensationalizing something that does.

So, sorry Netflix, this one didn’t work for me, and I completely understand why you dropped it in September. It has the superficial appearance of an awards-season movie without feeling like something that will seriously participate in awards season. Maybe the perpetually thin TV Movie category gives it some strange second life when Emmy nominations roll around and voters vaguely remember that there was a Ted Kaczynski movie with Russell Crowe, Jacob Tremblay and Shailene Woodley in it. Otherwise, there’s nothing particularly remarkable here. It’s dull, slow and ultimately has surprisingly little to say about a subject that should provide an enormous amount to talk about.

The audio description, however, is lovely. Produced by International Digital Center, written by Kyle East and narrated by Amanda Bruton, the track actually has the difficult task of helping decipher a film that can’t decide how it wants to tell its own story. Bruton’s vocal performance is well measured and decidedly human, something that has unfortunately become more reassuring as studios continue experimenting with synthetic voices, while East’s writing helps navigate the constant movement between the two timelines. He’s essentially trying to create clarity within a film that doesn’t always provide much itself. When Unabomber jumps backward or forward without much regard for whether the story needs it, the description at least helps keep everything grounded.

I’m sure somebody is going to reach for the obvious pull quote about Unabomber being a “bomb” for Netflix, but considering Ted Kaczynski actually killed three people and injured many others, I’ll leave that one sitting untouched. Unabomber instead strives to suggest that America may have participated in the creation of its own nightmare, raising questions about whether psychological manipulation helped shape someone who would eventually become a domestic terrorist. That’s an interesting and disturbing premise for a movie. Unfortunately, Netflix is ultimately complicit in expanding that premise into a feature-length narrative with little sense of direction, an almost complete lack of passion and a finished product that makes you wonder whether anyone involved had a fresh perspective on the material to begin with. Unabomber should be far better than it is. Sadly, it’s instantly forgettable.

Rotten: 4.9/10