Unhinged

Unhinged is the perfect film for 2020 — and that's not a compliment.

The extreme road rage thriller about an LA motorist (Russell Crowe) who doesn't take kindly to being honked at by frazzled single mom Rachel (Caren Pastorius, Slow West) is a tired exercise in cruelty, complete with copious violence against women as well as bizarre public acts of carnage.

At the same time, it's a brisk, throwback genre flick whose limited cast and psychotic, tireless antagonist keep the tension high despite the flimsy genesis of its central grudge.

The closest that writer Carl Ellsworth (Disturbia; Red Eye) comes to offering a plausible answer is a suffocating opening credits montage of talk radio hosts bemoaning society's ills, paired with footage of dangerous vehicular frustration and other savagery, suggesting Crowe's unnamed villain is a product of his environment.

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.

Trading the gloriously ambiguous cat-and-mouse chase of Duel for a more generic enemy with an often ridiculous but still dangerous voice, Unhinged nevertheless remains legitimately heart pounding for much of its lean 90-minute runtime and expertly drops in one “oh shit” moment that could prove to be Borte’s gateway to more ambitious action fare.

But is a movie about a man terrorizing a woman and her loved ones really what people want to see in 2020? Inevitable triumph or not, the merit of the gruesome path to redemption is sketchy at best and raises the question of just how far Crowe has fallen.

Grade: C. Rated R. Now playing in theaters

(Photo: Skip Bolden/Solstice Studios)