Hey, out there. You guys who slammed this in your reviews, did you see the same film I did? Not real? Improbable? Impossible? Huh. If those of you who found this thought-provoking film about two men on the edge of the social plane, one who is over the edge and the other given the task of hunting the first one down-- both men, socially disaffected and on their own, unbelievable and impossible, give some attention to Alston Chase's article in the June, 200, pp.41-65 of the Atlantic Monthly on Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber and the effects of his experiences being part of the ill-conceived and unethical study on human subjects during his undergraduate years there. The formula is simple: Take a bright, talented person who is teetering on the edge of emotional stability, fill them with lots of head stuff about social and environmental corruption, train in the technology of killing people and then, turn them loose. While no one wanted to turn Kaczynski into the unabomber, the circumstances, however well-intended, did. The film story of Aaron Hallum played by the competent Benicio Del Toro and his counterpart, L.T. Bonham, played by Tommy Lee Jones, bring this theme into clear focus. OK, if you are a shoot'em up thriller fan (as I self-confessedly admit to being), you might have missed the car chase, the sex and all that, but gang, it is a gripping and thought-provoking story. Not real? I submit, read the data on Columbine, The Minn Indian Res and the Unabomber and guess again. It's real. Damn real.
