What’s conspicuously missing from this non-fiction inquiry—much to its detriment—is an attendant discussion of what came next, and how McVeigh’s actions directly and indirectly led us to our precarious present moment.

What Mr. Levin and his producer, Daphne Pinkerson, do, while justifying nothing, is separate the righteously angry from the opportunistic and the people with legitimate grievances from the exploiters of those grievances.

A first-rate film about a too-often-forgotten event.

Cluttered as An American Bombing can occasionally be, it’s nevertheless convincing in its intent.