By Geno McGahee
Every day that passes, the stress of the world and this pandemic hits people and you see people fighting all over the place. Where is the love? Well, UNHINGED takes a look at what we see quite often with road rage and it’s an intense film that just keeps pushing and pushing the pace and suspense until the very end.
Man (Russell Crowe) is not having a good day. First, I’ve never seen Crowe this out of shape before, but there’s a lot of people that put on the quarantine fifteen. He apparently tripled that, but I’m sure he still has no issue getting tail. As “Man” in UNHINGED, he does have trouble getting chicks and immediately kills his ex-wife and her lover, viciously. The tone of the film is set.
Rachel (Caren Pistorius) is having issues. She got fired, her ex is being a pain in the ass, and her young son, Kyle (Gabriel Bateman), is getting punished for constantly being dropped off late at school. This leads to an altercation with Man. Man is at a green light and not moving and Rachel lays on the horn. When Man asks her for an apology, she tells him to shove it, more or less, and now he vows to show her why she should apologize in the most vicious ways possible.
That saying “one day you’ll fuck with the wrong person” comes to mind and that’s what Rachel did, and the realization when she hits a gas station and he pulls up behind her. She tells the clerk at the gas station and another customer decides to walk her out to her car and give that man presence to scare off the creep. That’s what guys do. You walk women to their cars and try to scare off the bad guys. It’s a guy thing. It makes us feel good. I have done it, but I always make sure that I have a direct path to haul ass should the mother fucker get out with a weapon or if he just looks really really mean. The dude here fucked with Man and it didn’t go well. Man crashes his pickup truck right into him and sends him to the promise land.
I’m surprised nobody called Man fat in this. There were opportunities. For instance, the guy that got turned into road kill at the gas station could have said “move your fat ass out of here.” The cop later on that confronts him could say “they’re going to love your plump ass where you’re going.” Perhaps one more draft of the screenplay was in order.
Man decides to target family and friends of Rachel after stealing her cell phone and he is very brutal. He kills her lawyer at a diner in front of a full house, doing it in devastating fashion. He then goes after Rachel’s brother and his girl. Crowe plays this role so well. He is unlikable and terrifying in this.
Rachel has no choice but to try to stop this maniac in a final showdown and it’s so intense. You don’t see kids beaten up that much in film, but UNHINGED doesn’t hold back. Even though he has a backstory of losing it all to an ex-wife, it’s impossible to feel any sympathy for him at all. I wanted to see him take a fall and for Rachel and her son to make it through the madness, which (spoiler) they do and in dramatic fashion.
UNHINGED is a great film that is intense from start to finish. It’s sort of like FALLING DOWN meeting JOY RIDE or DUEL. Russell Crowe does a fantastic job in this as the crushed soul that wants the world to burn and has focused his attention on one woman and one incident. Pistorius and Bateman do great too as the survivors in this flick.
I highly recommend this one, but it’s intense. There are no laughs here. This is a thriller that starts out quickly and keeps upping the pace until the very end. If you like movies like JOY RIDE, this will be very enjoyable for you.
