Directed by: Derrick Borte
Starring: Russell Crowe, Caren Pistorius, Gabriel Bateman, Jimmi Simpson
After the opening scenes of Unhinged, in which a man bludgeons a family to death and then burns the house down, we are privy to opening credits which play like a Trump campaign ad. You know: Be afraid, be very afraid, especially of road rage. What oxycodone-popping hulk Tom Cooper (Crowe), who killed his own family and burned his own house to the ground, has isn't road rage. He uses a traffic altercation with a young woman named Rachel (Pistorius) to unleash his sociopath personality on his next victims.
Unhinged is a slasher film with none-too-subtle subtext of how escalating daily pressures can lead to guys like Tom stalking you. Tom apparently went through a nasty divorce, and perhaps so because he is, after all, insane. And now he wants to take it out on the world, or whoever has the misfortune of crossing paths with him. You would think he'd want to get out of town asap, especially when witnesses saw him leave the burning house in a gray pickup truck, but this is the kind of movie where the police are conveniently elsewhere allowing Tom to stalk his victims. There was a mention in the opening credit fear montage about police funding being cut back, a poke at the idea of defunding the police. In Unhinged, the cops show up only when the plot requires them. The rest of the movie has Tom with the run of the country.
Rachel's bad day starts with oversleeping. She is a hairdresser who used to own a salon, but since it closed she takes on clients who don't appreciate her being late. Her soon to be ex-husband wants the house, she has money issues, and a teenage son Kyle (Bateman), who we know is around to be a potential victim for Tom. Rachel gets caught in traffic on the way to Kyle's school, and after pulling behind Tom at a traffic light, she leans on the horn when he doesn't move on green. Bad idea. Tom isn't the sort to let such a slight go, and after catching up with Rachel at the next light, she blows him off and incites his ire and a promise to show her what a bad day is. He makes good on the promise; stealing her cell phone after she stops for gas and replacing it with a flip phone so he can learn all about her and call Rachel to terrorize her.
Tom brazenly kills Rachel's best friend/lawyer (Simpson) in a diner where he was supposed to meet her for breakfast. She is late, of course, but with very good reason since Tom is causing mayhem in her life. Soon, Tom goes after Rachel's family, and even sooner, Rachel fights back. Unhinged isn't going to win any points for unpredictability. It's a slasher film with hints of a message which isn't required or even explicable. Should we understand Tom because he got the short end of the stick in life? (His story is helpfully summarized by a television news reporter, which is much more detail than you would usually get about a murder and arson suspect). Tom isn't given much personality except for that of a psycho, so with little to go on, we just wait impatiently for his demise. However, Russell Crowe, with his bulging eyes and even bulgier waistline, does try to elevate Tom from a mere spree killer. He's too good an actor to star in such a movie, but a paycheck is a paycheck. At least, he didn't phone it in. Pistorius makes an identifiable victim.
For a ninety-minute film, Unhinged could use some tighter editing. Scenes unfold at a glacial pace, and any tension unravels long before a payoff. It seems Rachel and Kyle are in the car forever before encountering Tom the first time, and the diner scene feels longer than it needs to be. Unhinged is the first movie I've seen in a theater since theaters closed in March. It is good to be back in a theater once again, although the quality of what's showing on the big screen hasn't improved since the six-month break. Unhinged is still sticking around in theaters because, let's face it, there isn't much else out there. In a normal time, Unhinged would've played to sparsely populated theaters and lasted about two weeks before it started disappearing from theaters. It isn't horrible, but instead rather ordinary and forgettable.
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