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I binge-watched and finished the whole Season 1 of the new Discovery drama, Manhunt Unabomer. I picked it because the Chinese title of it sounded like a thriller. It is indeed one hell of a thriller, but it's also a based-on-true-event 8-episode long thriller. I seldom finish an entire season in one go, but there are times where the story is just too compelling to let go unfinished.
From Longman Dictionary: Unabomer, the name given in newspapers etc to a man who, over a period of 18 years, sent 16 bombs through the mail to US universities and other organizations, in order to protest against technology. In 1996 the FBI arrested Theodore Kaczynski, a former university professor, for these crimes, and in 1998 he was sent to prison for life.
The drama focuses on mostly two characters: the perpetrator, Ted for short, and the FBI agent by the name of Fitz, who identifies and locates him in 2 years despite all odds against him. Fitz is recruited as part of a desperate effort by the FBI's UNABOM case team to pull a profile on the culprit behind the mail bombings. Fitz soon realizes that all what the team call forensic-based assumptions about the bomber are wrong in the first place. The assumption is that the bomber is a disgruntled former airline engineer with below-average education and low IQ, and that his targets are totally random pickings, and that he's doing it for revenge of some sort. But Fitz's brandnew profile of the perpetrator is dismissed and laughed out of court by the leaders at the FBI team - sadly unsurprisingly. Fitz cuts in from the angle of linguistic aspect of all the letters they have from the bomber himself, which are previously thought to be mere worthless pranks or diversions. The more Fitz studies on the bomber the more obsessed he grows on the case, and the more aggressive he becomes in his tactics, which costs him his family and at least his job. There's a familiar ring to this part of the story, isn't there? His tenacity finally leads him to the doorstep of the bomber's own brother - not without help from his former colleague of course.
On the other hand, Theodore Kaczynski is more of a dramatic figure. He is in fact - far from FBI's decades long assumptions - a mathematics genius with very high IQ since very young age and he attends Harvard University at the age of 16. His high intelligence turns out to be a double-edged sword, which for most of his life only serves to paint him into a lonely, isolated corner where he thinks he is betrayed by people around him again and again. The last straw that kills the camel is the betrayal of his most respected and beloved mentor at Harvard, who turns out to be working for CIA on the side to perfect their brainwashing program. Kaczynski firmly believes that industrial development and technology that humanity has grown so more and more dependent upon is actually striping mankind of true freedom, and that technology advances will only be achieved at the cost of environmental ruination. Frankly speaking, this is a concept still embraced by many today. But Kaczynski doesn't know how to get his voice heard by the public, which drives him nearly crazy and pushes him to adopt more extreme measures, thus the mail bombings across the US over as long as 18 years. He finally gets his ideas, a book manuscript entitled Industrial Society and Its Future, published on America's mainstream newspapers (on his promise of no more mail bombings), but it's also the publication of his revolutionary ideas that gets him caught in the end.
The drama leaves something of a sting in its tail. Upon trial Kaczynski is given two options: go free on schizophrenia excuses and his ideas wane out soon; or plead guilty and take a life sentence and his ideas live on. Kaczynski chooses the latter. He'd rather die if he's to live on the cost of his beliefs.
Without a doubt, Manhunt Unabomer is a thriller in every sense. And the fact that it's based on true event makes it even more so. I am sure certain amounts of artistic license were taken to make the drama more engrossing but who would blame that? Even documentaries have to take liberties with facts here and there for effect.
I find the watch worth every minute. Recommended.
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发表于 2018-3-25 20:27:11
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