Unhinged

This movie is hot garbage. Man kills a guy in the middle of a crowded diner, walks away and drives off. No police, no helicopters looking for his huge pickup truck that stand out like a sore thumb. Russell Crowe should be embarrassed by this.

Wow. I wasn't expecting that. Absolutely brutal thriller with a powerhouse performance from Crowe. It's like a cross between Falling Down & Duel & escalates the tension really well, especially as the sound design is especially prominent helping to portray the heightened sense of drama. The opening credits are there to remind you that escalating violence is on the increase and this plays out as a frightening scenario as to what could potentially happen. I'm never using my car horn again.

There's nothing wrong a decent thriller where two people face off on the road using their wits and their heavy machinery. So this movie could have been the Duel (1971) of the 2020s (or at the very least a Joy Ride (2001)), but unfortunately, it lacks a director like Steven Spielberg or John Dahl to make it work. After a shocking opening scene, director Derrick Borte starts off nicely with a disturbing montage that shows us the horrible consequences of explosive aggression and road rage. For a long time, his movie seems to be a passionate plea to have more patience and compassion with others in a harsh society where everyone is under constant pressure, because you never know what the other person is going through. Too bad that he gradually undermines this message with cheap shocks and sadistic violence. It's good to see Russell Crowe again after such a long absence, because watching his heavily disturbed maniac snap and terrorize a lady that just happened to piss him off is definitely one of the scarce highlights of the film. No Oscar material, but the man is still an acting heavyweight (no pun intended... well, maybe a little), so much so that leading lady Caren Pistorius cannot hope to carry this movie in his presence. In fact, her character is so passive and uninteresting that I felt very little sympathy for her plight. I don't know if it was the intention here, but I always love movies where you cheer for the bad guy for a very long time, like Face-Off and Law Abiding Citizen; everyone loves tragic villains, and you always hope that the makers can delay that moment where you lose sympathy for them until the very last. Unfortunately, this moment comes way too soon in the movie. In the first half we get some motivation from Crowe's and Pistorius' character for their actions, but that wears off quickly in an endless rampage that seems to be an excuse for a lot of torture *. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with that, as long as you keep developing your key players. Especially psychopaths work best when they remain completely unexplained mysteries, or when they get fleshed out properly, like the psychologic-meltdown classic Falling Down. However, Crowe and Pistorius never get beyond their minimal and one-dimensional backstories. When the bad guy gets to the point where I no longer rooted for him (again, way too soon), you hope that your allegiance changes back to the heroine. But Pistorius' character keeps making such bad decisions (up to and including a laughably set up climax) that by that time, I no longer cared about either, and could only worry about the collateral damage. Too bad for Crowe and Jimmi Simpson, who probably have one of the best scenes together when this movie is still promising. But the pressure to marry action with psychology, and to increase the stakes with such disregard for realism really starts working against the film and characters. I don't mind violence in movies at all, but it should make me invest in characters, not get desensitized and bored. I like a good battle of character like everyone else, but when the action and suspense start feeling stale because I'm no longer emotionally engaged, then it's just mostly a waste of time. But granted, it's not a complete disaster and it had its moments. I hear people praising this movie as super-suspenseful, so by all means, try it out. But don't say I didn't warn you.

No one in their right mind does the things she and her son do. The script js disappointing in that regard. So you gotta convince yourself that she's not a mentally competent. Also some of thesw stupid choices are cruel. She doesn't care for the strangers who help her. Or risk the life of her client by choosing her. These make the film very bad and not worth watching even though Russell Crowe kinda kills it with his incredible acting.

I groaned as much as crow did in this film and I think my cringe bucket is over flowing. Bad acting, predictable, unrealistic, poor continuity. I couldn't wait for it to end.