Unhinged (2020)
Directed by Derrick Borte
Rachel is a divorced single mother whose bad day gets even worse. She's running late to drop her son off at school when she honks her horn impatiently at a fellow driver during rush-hour traffic. After an exchange of words, she soon realizes that the mysterious man is following her and her young son in his truck. A case of road rage quickly escalates, at horrifyingly psychotic proportions, into full-blown terror as Rachel discovers the psychopath's sinister plan for revenge. He is single-mindedly determined to teach her a deadly lesson.
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The film is also reminiscent of Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down, which similarly followed an entitled white guy who’s not nearly as powerless as he perceives himself to be.
Something akin to Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down , but with (more) crunched steel and highway pileups.
Lo que aquí tenemos es Falling Down -un filme exponencialmente superior, dirigido por el recién fenecido Joel Schumacher, acerca de otro hombre blanco estadounidense fuera de sus cabales repartiendo violencia, arrogancia y “white privilege” por las calles de la ciudad- para los fanáticos MAGA.
Unlike Falling Down, a similar movie that starred Michael Douglas and which was directed by the late Joel Schumacher, Unhinged isn't about a character who seems to have been bred by the cumulative frustrations of a dysfunctional society.
In the Joel Schumacher thriller Falling Down he played a chronically outraged character identified only as The Man.
We already know that he’s mad, bad, and lethal to know, and Borte’s decision to go against the grain of road rage tradition — like, say, in Steven Spielberg’s Duel , still the gold standard for most of these thrillers — ruins the moment almost entirely and helps to rob the film’s second act of any real tension.
And so a game of cat and mouse, recalling portions of Steven Spielberg’s Duel and Robert Harmon’s The Hitcher , is kicked into motion.
But even that mind game can’t rescue the lazy B-movie routine of this cheap entertainment from director Derrick Borte, which could be generously described as an homage to Joel Schumacher’s “Falling Down” by way of Steven Spielberg’s “Duel.”
The director absolutely pays homage to Steven Spielberg in Unhinged, borrowing from the shark thriller but also Duel, an early entry in Spielberg’s filmography.
It’s like Russell Crowe ate the villainous semi from Steven Spielberg’s Duel , absorbing not only the truck’s girth but also its malevolent spirit.
“Let’s play Russian Roulette with your contacts” , Tom roars, taking control of Rachel’s life like the unseen madman from Steven Spielberg’s Duel.
Unhinged is technically an original story, though it may remind you of better rage movies (Changing Lanes, with Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson, is quite good) and road thrillers – Steven Spielberg’s debut feature Duel from 1971 remains a case study in how to do it right.
If you want a good road-rage movie, seek out 2002’s Changing Lanes.
Sure, it’s a B-picture, a straight-up rage-on-the-road genre movie in the “Duel,””Changing Lanes” or “Falling Down” mold.
A smarter writer-director team might have goosed up this sensational revenge scenario into a timely state-of-the-nation address in the tradition of Do the Right Thing , Falling Down or Changing Lanes .
Unlike films like Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down (1993) and Roger Michell’s Changing Lanes (2002), Unhinged doesn’t really attempt to delve into the deeper intricacies of why Crowe’s character is so…er… Unhinged .
It also steals shamelessly from better, similarly-themed films, such as Duel, Falling Down and Changing Lanes.
That explanation generally suffices, but character development isn’t exactly necessary in this suspenseful game of life-and-death, made plenty terrifying by director Derrick Borte ( American Dreamer ) and his ability to craft one claustrophobic moment after another on the film’s various roadways and domestic detours.
Director Derrick Borte (American Dreamer) and screenwriter Carl Ellsworth (Disturbia) will have you believe that’s where they’re headed.
The first two names that jumped out at me when looking into the specifics of the new film starring Russell Crowe were writer Carl Ellsworth (the remakes of Red Dawn and The Last House on the Left, as well as films like Disturbia and Red Eye, which are interesting genre works that feel like remakes of better movies) and director Derrick Borte (who made another movie about a downtrodden, middle-aged white guy last year, called American Dreamer, starring Jim Gaffigan).
But the film, directed by German Derrick Borte (“American Dreamer”) and written by Carl Ellsworth (“Disturbia,” “The Last House on the Left”), invites us to get a kick out of murderous, clown-shaped, Energizer Bunny Tom.
Borte’s 2018 “American Dreamer” is in many ways a dress rehearsal for “Unhinged,” telling the story of a respectful man who loses his job, and ultimately after a stint as a taxi driver, respect for himself.
Director Derrick Borte ( American Dreamer ) escalates the tension, especially when the Man steals Rachel’s smartphone and goes through her messages and contact lists (she doesn’t use a password), threatening her friends and family.
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"Think Cape Fear or Falling Down but with high octane B-movie goodness feeding its engine"…
Tom is first cousin to Max Cady of both versions of the classic crime thriller “Cape Fear.”
The obvious parallels to this are those men who’ve been pushed to the limit and have decided to see what’s on the other side – the likes of Michael Douglas in Falling Down and Robert De Niro in Cape Fear.
But no one is going to mistake Derrick Borte’s film for Rupert Julian’s The Phantom of the Opera , Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull , or Michael Mann’s The Insider .
“Unhinged” arrives in the same tradition as revenge/anger porn movies of the 1990s and early Aughts — “Falling Down,” “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” “Changing Lanes.”
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (nanny from Hell), Unlawful Entry (cop from Hell), Pacific Heights (landlord from Hell), to name just three.
After Joan Crawford appeared in British trashola like Berserk! (1967) and Trog (1970), we were encouraged to see it as unambiguously debasing.
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And so a game of cat and mouse, recalling portions of Steven Spielberg’s Duel and Robert Harmon’s The Hitcher , is kicked into motion.
“Unhinged” falls back on a reliable trope: Spielberg showed in “Duel” and Robert Harmon in “The Hitcher” that crazed drivers can deliver exhilaration in movies full of twists and turns.
Working from a script by hired hand Carl Ellsworth (Red Eye and Disturbia and similar late-2000s thriller fare, the aforementioned kinds of movies “they” just don’t make anymore), Borte’s storytelling economy impressively gets us out the door of the house Rachel’s ex-husband wants in a hurry, all while giving us a sufficient rundown of Rachel’s family situation: Her precocious teen son Kyle (Gabriel Bateman) and her mooch brother (Austin P. McKenzie) and her mooch brother’s cute hippie girlfriend (Juliene Joyner, who has nothing to do but inevitably play a corpse) are all living under one roof, adding to the financial burden of needing to keep her flailing salon business afloat while moving her ailing mother to a care facility.
Their battle, particularly in the final act, reminds a lot of the Ellsworth-penned, Wes Craven-directed Red Eye , both films forcing a good woman to outwit, outplay and outlast a madman.
Ellsworth has a solid resume with thrillers like Disturbia, the (pretty good) Last House on the Left remake and Wes Craven’s dynamite Red Eye (which turns 15 tomorrow).
The German-born Borte made a promising feature debut in 2010 with his self-penned dark comedy The Joneses , but he has subsequently specialized in minor genre pieces, while screenwriter Carl Ellsworth's credits have been spotty since he scored early success with the high-concept psycho-thrillers Red Eye (2005) and Disturbia (2007).
The first two names that jumped out at me when looking into the specifics of the new film starring Russell Crowe were writer Carl Ellsworth (the remakes of Red Dawn and The Last House on the Left, as well as films like Disturbia and Red Eye, which are interesting genre works that feel like remakes of better movies) and director Derrick Borte (who made another movie about a downtrodden, middle-aged white guy last year, called American Dreamer, starring Jim Gaffigan).
The script, by Carl Ellsworth (“Disturbia,” “Red Eye”), provides some background details about who the couple was, and what connection they may have to Man.