Unhinged

In the opening moments of Unhinged we see a man (Russell Crowe) sitting in a parked car in front of a house staring at a lit match through narrow eyes. At the next moment the man heads to the front door of the house with an axe and a can of gas and with no hesitation breaks down the door and kills a man and woman in the house as he lights the place on fire. This pretty much sets the table for the experience we are about to have, or how some might call it, everyday life in America 2020.

The why’s are not important to what has made Crowe’s character, simply called ‘The Man’ in the credits, so angry. The fact that he just killed two people is enough to know he has gone over the edge in the sanity department. A lot of us though are hanging on that edge and Rachel (Caren Pistorius ) is one, as she is going through a divorce that is making the rest of her life difficult. After waking up late, she and her son Kyle (Gabriel Bateman ) get in the car and rush to get to school on time. Along the way though Rachel already having a hectic morning where she is running late honks her horn at a truck, that truck’s driver is ‘The Man’ who started this movie in a blaze. Not being a fan of her aggressive honking, ‘The Man’ engages with her asking for an apology and when she refuses he gets really angry with her. Having perceived that she lost him she carries on with her day only to be confronted by him again as she gets gas and at that moment realizes that the safety she thought she would feel around others does not exist. Things only escalate from there as the run to get her kid to school on time becomes a run for Rachel and everyone she holds dear in the wake of this madman.

Unhinged at times feels like you are watching a dramatization of a news story rather than watching a movie. It’s that anger you see in Crowe’s eyes that you recognize from all of those videos of angry people that the world seems to be filled with. While the title of the film refers to Crowe’s character’s mental state, some might argue it might be the studio using this movie as the canary as it is the first movie to open in a theater since the pandemic began. While watching angry Russell Crowe is quite appealing, Unhinged doesn’t offer much more than that and some ultra-violence. The screenplay is not much to write home about, but it does offer some mindless fun, which you can argue we all could use right about now. Unhinged is probably not going to save movie theaters, as even angry Russell Crowe has his limits. And while this is one you would want to catch, I suggest you would be better off just to watch it at home where you can keep things stable.

Unhinged in playing in theaters 8/21