Unhinged: Russell Crowe Road-Rage Drama Brings the Horror if Not the Plausibility
By Thom Ernst
Rating: B-
In the new thriller Unhinged, a delayed response to a green traffic light escalates into a murderous rage so intense it would make Mad Max opt to take public transit. Russell Crowe is the villain in this pedal-to-the-metal horror film, and Caren Pistorious as Rachel is the focus of his fury.
Crowe, identified in the credits only as The Man, is the reason to see this film. He makes for a convincing villain. And even when the movie veers towards the ridiculous, Crowe forces you to keep your eyes on the road.
The story: Rachel is a mess. She is in the middle of a nasty divorce, her brother and his fiancé are squatting in her home, and her best client fired her. Consequently, Rachel is far from her best when she pulls up behind a vehicle that refuses to budge on a green light. She responds the way many of us would in that circumstance — and the movie relies on the incident to be relatable. She leans long and hard on her horn.
But the distracted driver (Crowe), who is having a bad day of his own, doesn’t take kindly to being honked at and demands an apology. Unfortunately, Rachel’s in no mood to comply. Her young son, Kyle (Gabriel Bateman), begs his mother to concede, but Rachel is stubborn. And that’s when things shift from zero into overdrive.
Until that moment, director Derrick Borte (American Dreamer) played nice. He keeps the suspense mounting as Rachel commits all sorts of misdemeanors: checking her cell phone, taking her eyes off the road, driving on the shoulder, speeding, and cutting off cars.
We know it is a matter of time before Rachel collides with The Man and having seen The Man murder two people and burn their house even before the opening credits begin, we also know that the confrontation will be more than a civil exchange of insurance cards.
Unhinged begins as a tense, unsettling thriller reflecting how quickly decorum can give way to mayhem. The story, from Carl Ellsworth’s script, (Disturbia, Red Eye) seems a perfectly suited tale for these times. A montage of news footage depicting terrifying examples of road-rage play over the opening credits and sets up a reasonable expectation that Unhinged intends to remain within the realm of possibilities.
But just when the suspense seems to start paying off, the film takes a jarring U-turn towards the ridiculous, stacking up a massive body-count along the way. What begins (save for the pre-credit killings) as a treatise on road rage quickly revs up to something far more violent. Horror fans won’t complain about the film’s extremes; they’re gratuitous and explicit.
If you are at all invested in a story about the fracturing of society, then Unhinged will only add to your frustrations. And an underlying theme that the victim is partially to blame, is not likely to win anyone over.
Unhinged. Directed by Derrick Borte. Starring Russell Crowe, Caren Pistorious, and Gabriel Bateman. Opens in theatres August 14.