Director Mike Ott puts a microscope onto Timothy McVeigh (Alfie Allen), perpetrator of the single deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history — the Oklahoma City bombing. Over days and nights, McVeigh eats, sleeps, watches the news, meets a girl… all while inside his mind brews an unthinkable plan that will forever change the collective American psyche — one that he loops fellow conspirator Terry Nichols in on (played by a creepily subdued Brett Gelman). An unexpected cast brings these characters to life with a stunningly subtle hand, and the film neither sensationalizes real life events nor gives into the quiet, devastating tension sustained from beginning to end. 

Like a bird circling inevitably closer into the tragedy at its center, the film paints around the edges with swift and sparse strokes. What emerges is a deeply unsettling likeness of the American memory.––Cara Cusumano

Mike Ott