How accurate is Netflix's 'Unabomber' movie? A real FBI agent on the case weighs in.
A new Netflix movie about the Unabomber features a fictionalized FBI agent character based on real-life profiler James R. Fitzgerald. The film accurately depicts the role of linguistics in the investigation, though it takes creative liberties with the protagonist.
Why it matters
It illustrates the common practice of blending historical fact with fictionalized narratives in true-crime entertainment and the impact on public perception of historical events.
Shailene Woodley in "Unabomber." Philippe Bosse/Netflix The Netflix movie "Unabomber" looks at the life of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, and how he was captured. Shailene Woodley plays an FBI agent hot on his trail. Retired FBI agent James R. Fitzgerald, who helped bring down the Unabomber, tells Business Insider what the movie got right and what it got wrong. Ted Kaczynski's decades-long acts of domestic terrorism that led to him being known as the Unabomber have been chronicled in books, documentaries, plays, and movies for years. Now Netflix is taking its swing. In the streaming giant's original movie "Unabomber," the story splits between a young Kaczynski (played by Jacob Tremblay) as a test subject during his time at Harvard by a professor he idolizes (Russell Crowe), and the FBI investigation that inevitably ended with him being captured in a small cabin in Montana in 1996.
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