Warning: Plenty of cars were hurt during the filming of Unhinged.
Like the speedometer in lead character “the Man’s” (Russell Crowe) grey pick up truck, this film doesn’t slow down. The relentless pace is set early as we are given an all to graphic insight into his character’s Intentions.
Academy Award winner Russell Crowe, stars in Unhinged, a timely psychological thriller that explores the fragile balance of a society pushed to the edge, taking something we’ve all experienced — road rage — to an unpredictable and terrifying conclusion.
Rachel (Caren Pistorius) is running late to work when she has an altercation at a traffic light with a stranger (Crowe) whose life has left him feeling powerless and invisible.
Soon, Rachel finds herself and everyone she loves, the target of a man who decides to make one last mark upon the world by teaching her a series of deadly lessons.
What follows is a dangerous game of cat and mouse that proves you never know just how close you are to someone who is about to become unhinged.
When we meet Rachel, she is dealing with her own challenges, her emotions are at boiling point and when her path crosses with the man whilst stopped at an intersection, well, we have a perfect storm.
The destruction and carnage left behind, not since the T-800 chase of John Conner in The Terminator, have I witnessed such a determined pursuit by the antagonist playing with his prey throughout the film.
With a pain threshold to match his focus, little was going to deter Crowe from making good on his promise to give Rachel the “worst day of her life”.
The film boasts some incredibly vivid action sequences, which makes you truly feel as though you are in the passenger seat the entire movie.
Without giving away any spoilers, it is as graphic in its conclusion as it is in the start, putting a punctuation point on a relentless 90mins.
Once you’ve picked your jaw up off the ground, you leave the cinema as stressed as if you were the one being hunted.
In a frighteningly stellar performance, I’m not sure what was more unsettling — Crowe’s unstable frame of mind or the fact it felt as though he could have been someone’s dad behind the wheel and not a deranged psychopath.
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