Movie Review: Russell Crowe drives angry in ’Unhinged’

 

 

Russell Crowe, Russell Crowe. A man hands over a large performance box. You can play it down and let that soothing purr at the top of your psyche take care of things. You can overdo it and pour sauce, seasoning and dressing.

In the sadistic but lackluster road rage thriller Upset, Crowe literally drives a car delivering a big cast box, over and over again. Although there are almost no films, in a year, when the world’s multiplexes are mostly back, gone, or something in between, we’ll forget Upset. But we will remember who fed him and, without repeating the line “Gladiator” aloud, asked a rhetorical question: are you not having fun?

Answer: a little. Screenwriter Carl Ellsworth’s premise is simple. Back-to-school bully single mother Rachel, played by Karen Pistorius, faces another messy ride with her supernaturally calm and wise son (Gabriel Bateman) in the back seat. The truck in front of your car will not run the green light. Horn. Oooooooo.

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Mistake! He picks on Russell Crowe and he looks… unhappy? Unfriendly? Passionate? Anything. A few minutes later, he was again stuck in traffic with his mother and son. “We seem to have developed a fundamental inability to apologize to anyone for anything,” Crowe’s anonymous enemy says in a vague gumbo dialect and a phrase borrowed from Strather Martin’s Keeper of the Misunderstanding in Cold Blooded Luke.

From there, in tortilla dialogue, broadcast mostly on mobile, Unhinged continues its growing business. Automobile murder. Stabbing in restaurants. Unbridled hostility towards divorce lawyers. Climatic climate invasion. grunting bear growling bear? Grunting Bear Scenario or not, Crow’s frustrated character growls like a Kodiak at the wheel. Director Derrick Borte, who made his feature film debut in 2009 with The Joneses, focuses his resources on destroying four-wheelers loudly enough to take his mind off the story’s problems.

The key misconception comes early, in the prologue, in which we see the character Crowe, recently and unfortunately divorced, retaliate with gasoline and a big hammer under the cover of night. This gives “Unhinged” a great start. This also predetermines everything in the most difficult way, preventing Crowe from going anywhere, except vice versa. (Perhaps the movie would have worked better with a 30-minute flashback after Crowe appeared out of nowhere and got into the death pickup.)

Like Crow, Pistorius is a native of New Zealand. She’s a good, honest actress, stuck in a one-note routine in what feels like a two-speed movie that stands still or goes crazy. “Unhinged” is set in Generic, USA with cars with fake “Heart of America” ​​license plates. (The movie was filmed last summer in the New Orleans area.) Violence is inherently unreasonable because the premise is an excuse to keep the pot of violence simmering and boiling over periodically. No mysticism (in the style of Spielberg’s “Duel”) and minimally efficient use of narrow spaces (in the style of Wes Craven’s daring 2012 film “Red Eye”, also written by screenwriter Allison).

However, I’m glad “Unhinged” exists, if only because of the extremely funny and foul-mouthed promo trailer that Crowe recently tweeted. It’s not safe to work if you’re still working around other people. But Crow offers more and better entertainment in one minute than many films, including this one, in 91 years.