Russell Crowe Returns to Netflix in 24 Hours in Unabomber

Netflix has become the home of the true crime documentary. Every domestic violence incident, mysterious disappearance or mass murder seems to have been covered in some form, so when Netflix puts out a feature film about a notorious crime case, we sit up and pay attention. And when you throw in an Oscar winner and a child acting prodigy in his latest grown-up role, it's something to add to the calendar.

Netflix’s latest crime thriller isn’t simply interested in the FBI hunt that eventually brought Ted Kaczynski down. It goes much further back, asking how a 16-year-old mathematical prodigy attending Harvard ended up becoming one of America’s most notorious killers. Russell Crowe (Gladiator) stars alongside Jacob Tremblay (Sovereign) in Unabomber, which officially arrives on Netflix tomorrow. Directed by Janus Metz (Borg vs. McEnroe), the R-rated crime thriller runs around 100 minutes and moves between two periods of Kaczynski’s life: his disturbing experiences as a young Harvard student and the FBI investigation attempting to identify and capture him decades later.

Tremblay plays the young Kaczynski, who entered Harvard at only 16 and became involved in controversial psychological experiments conducted by Professor Henry Murray, played by Crowe. The other side of the story follows FBI agent Joanne Miller as investigators attempt to hunt down the Unabomber, with the two timelines gradually building a portrait of how an isolated mathematical prodigy eventually turned to violence.

Metz has been careful not to describe the movie as an attempt to excuse Kaczynski’s crimes. Instead, he sees it as examining the radicalization of a young man who increasingly separates himself from the society around him. Kaczynski’s real bombing campaign killed three people and injured 23 others.

“Unabomber is a story about a young man who feels increasingly disenfranchised by society and decides to take up violence as a means of revenge. We crosscut between two timelines, roughly speaking: the making of the Unabomber and the capture of the Unabomber.”

Who Stars in 'Unabomber'?

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Tremblay stars as Ted Kaczynski, with Crowe playing Professor Henry Murray and Shailene Woodley (Divergent) as FBI agent Joanne Miller. Annabelle Wallis (Malignant) plays Christiana Morgan, Murray’s academic partner and co-director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic, while Alexander Ludwig (Vikings), Steven Ogg (The Walking Dead), and Marc Menchaca (Ozark) round out the principal ensemble.

It’s Tremblay rather than Crowe who has the difficult job of portraying Kaczynski himself. The actor has said he knew relatively little about the domestic terrorist’s early life before reading the screenplay, including the fact that he had attended Harvard as a teenage mathematical prodigy. Rather than approaching Kaczynski as a ready-made monster, Tremblay wanted his younger incarnation to feel recognizably human.

“I really wanted to make sure I went into this role playing him as a real person. I wanted him to feel real. I drew from my own personal experiences of what it feels like to be involved in a career where I’m surrounded by a lot of people who are older than me, and that feeling of not fitting in a bit.”

Unabomber premieres September 25 exclusively on ⁠Netflix.