Film review of Unhinged. Cars, chaos and Russell Crowe.
The city is a jungle, and it is the cars that are the wild animals that Criss crossing the city roaring and revving at each other. This is the city that the Man played by Russell Crowe’s inhabits, he is overweight and is driving a car to match his size. He speaks with a southern drawl that echoes the film Southern Comfort (1981). He is angry and straight away the film plunges you straight into the result of that anger at its start. This film does not do much to inform the audience about his anger and where it comes from. Rather than some extended flashback to his life with a family and a job we cut straight to the chase. In its opening scene, the Man, armed with an axe pummels the front door to brutally attack his family leaving them for dead then driving away Unhinged and dangerous. Also inhabiting the city is Rachel played by Caren Pistorius who on the surface is the opposite of The Man. What she has in common with The Man albeit at a vastly lower level, is anger. She is having a difficult day, divorced, and raising a kid, alone while working as hairdresser. Like hammer and nails they are bound to meet. It is one of those everyday car rage incidents that foreshadow the plot of the film in a prologue having real-life footage of incidents. The montage of road rage incidents in Unhinged could have featured as an attack advert for a political party.
Having ignited the film with such a visceral scene showing The Man torching and killing his ex-wife the film unleashes Russell Crowe’s character to cause mayhem in the city. Tension is ratcheted up not in the scenes were Russell Crowe character goes wild but in those low-level ways in which car drivers rub up against each other. For it is Rachel that rubs up against the Man in what looks like everyday shouty interactions with another driver. Sorry is sometimes the hardest word and Rachel’s refusals to apologise to the Man is what propels the film forward. The tension continues as Rachel drives around, is The Man following in his car, is that his car? too ‘that’s him he is following me.’
Unhinged is a testimony to the power of the Hollywood star. The one whose name can open a film big financially or raise a mediocre film to the status of good. Director Derrick Borte has Russell Crowe, an actor that can fill the screen with menace with just his face and a few menacing lines. In order to keep up the momentum of the film’s first forty-five minutes the script throws more wood on the fire like Rachels friends who become embroiled in the Man’s rampage. The police who by now are pursuing The Man are very much in the background. The further the film goes the weaker it becomes. Finally, coming to an underwhelming stop after ninety minutes. Overall, it’s not a bad film with decent car chases, violence, and edge of your seat tension. This is a good genre film that otherwise would have bypassed the cinema and going straight to streaming. The ambition and canvas of the film is smaller than the film it most reminds people of, Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down (1993) with Micheal Douglas as William ‘D-Fens’ Foster, on great form lashing out at society that he thinks has gone to the dogs.
