Manhunt (2017)

Written by Sushruta on December 27, 2019

This series charts the FBI's attempt to capture the elusive "Unabomber", a domestic terrorist who killed 3 and wounded 23 people through mail bombs. With eight episodes and a combined runtime of around 8 hours, the series obviously delves into the lives of all the people involved in the investigation, but is mainly told through the perspective of James R. Fitzgerald, who is an FBI criminal profiler.

Sam Worthington plays the role of Fitzgerald, and the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski is played by Paul Bettany. Both of these actors rose to fame through the Avatar and Marvel franchises respectively. Both of them are strong in their performance, especially Bettany, who steals the show with his engrossed performance.

The back and forth editing looks a bit shady, and the creators of the show simply abandon that approach around halfway of the show, which feels weird. The pace also slows down a bit in the middle part of the series. And there are a few "investigation" cliches that are seen. The main problem of the series is that it can't balance between the investigation stories and the courtroom stories, often ignoring one for the other. A more linear approach to the story would've been better.

However, the series is definitely one of the better investigation series on the internet, and is definitely worth the eight hours of watching it. If you are still not convinced, watch the first episode, and I think Paul Bettany will do the rest.