“Unhinged” is, by contrast, basically an anti-blockbuster, a small-scale film with a throwback drive-in feel that loses nothing in a setting at home, and based on its minimal merit, has not lost much in any case.
Although the film is paid for as a “road-rage thriller”, this is not 100 percent accurate, because the story takes the game away in the opening scene. Sitting in his car, Crowe’s character looks desperate, removes his wedding ring and pleads for violence, revealing that this is not just an ordinary man who snaps (remember the controversial 1993 Michael Douglas movie “Falling Down”), but rather someone who has already crossed the line to killer psychopath.
Introduce Rachel (Caren Pistorius), a new single mom trying to get her kids to school on time amid horrific traffic. Receiving some bad news in the car, she’s in the foul mood as she gasps at the wrong boy.
When Crowe’s stranger asks for an apology and Rachel protests that she’s having a bad morning, he laughs, “I do not think you really know what a bad day is.” He then goes on to demonstrate that point by pursuing his revenge for the light, triggering a series of hunters, and increasing escalation.
Of course, the habit of touching an ordinary person in dangerous situations is not new – only among films about bad decision-making by drivers, “The Hitcher” comes to mind – along with my horror from a daily experience. Bearded and burly, Crowe projects a sense of threat, even in this low-octane car.
Still too much “Unhinged” and then ended with an opening of the montage of incidents on the road rage and scenes of general chaos, filming the film in the background of people who are angry, nerves decayed and society hangs by a thread. As true as that may be, it’s a shameful case of fools trying to connect a film that is clearly designed to deliver 90 minutes of cheap suspense to some deeper theme.
Maybe that’s why seeing “Unhinged” (screened, incidentally, at home) provokes a different kind of annoyance. Because it’s what the movies need now, it does not make much sense when reading the room, even if that room is an empty theater.
“Unhinged” premieres August 21 in theaters in the US. It is R. observed
.
