A thriller starring Russell Crowe playing a psychopath who destroys the life of a woman who blows her horn in a traffic jam.
What is the plot?
Rachel is going through a divorce, is staying at her brother's house, has a child to take to school and also has an appointment with her lawyer friend. They're late and traffic is hell. Long lines everywhere, at one of the shortcuts she takes to get to school, at the traffic light there is a gray van that doesn't move. Rachel gets angry, honks her horn a couple of times, and then passes it on the side. The van begins to follow her, in one of the traffic jams, the fat man driving it has a heated argument with her and promises that soon she will know what it is like to have a bad day. This will be the beginning of a nightmare for Rachel.
Traffic in big cities is really stressful, any walk or movement from one place to another, raises the stress levels in people. The noise, the lines of the vehicles, etc. Plus, if we're late for a meeting or taking the kids to school, the traffic puts us in a bad mood.
All over the world, we see people insulting each other in traffic and even fighting. Pressing the car horn loudly denotes that we are being asked to move, but that sound is annoying. There are many stories that end in tragedy.
The film's protagonist, Rachel, has the misfortune to honk at the wrong man. What would not pass for a simple plot becomes a human hunt. Although the strange man is no fool, he chooses a weak looking woman as his prey.
The reasons why the man in the van reacts this way and decides to make Rachel's life hell are explained in the film's disturbing opening scene.
I think that if it were the eighties, this thriller would be a box office success. In that decade, the films with psychopaths that made the life of the show's hero impossible were very well received and generated many benefits.
I have seen many movies of this type, which I do not remember the name, because they are movies to consume and discard everything else. They are junk food style movies. You eat the hamburger or the piece of pizza and after a while you don't remember the delicious taste it had.
The one who seems to have eaten all the hamburgers was Russell Crowe. I don't know if he's wearing a prosthesis, like he did in The Loudest Voice mini-series, or if he's really put on weight, because you can see his big cheeks and his huge belly.
Maybe they asked him to get fat to look more imposing on camera, but I think it takes away from the character's credibility, because someone so fat, his movements tend to be slower, but in the film he looks more agile than Jack Bauer.
It is a mistake to ask for some veracity from this type of film, we should let ourselves be carried away by what the story shows us, and enjoy it for the type of product it is. But I can't help but think about all the inconsistencies in Carl Ellsworth's script. This writer's previous scripts have been: Red Eye, Disturbance, Red Dawn and a 2009 version of The Last House on the Left.
To explain what bothers me about the film, I have to do spolier. Don't read this segment if you don't want to hear about it. I'll let you know when the spoiler is over.
The police are supposedly looking for that fat guy who escaped in a gray van, the crime is on the news, but there are no police anywhere, there are no helicopters inspecting the roads. A total inconsistency.
When the fat man kills Andy in the cafeteria, which is full of people, everyone panics, they look scared. Is there no one with a gun in the country where they sell them everywhere? Are they all fearful cowards in the country where they boast of being brave? Another inconsistency.
The fat psychopath steals the cell phone and gives him time to look at the tablet and hide it with duct tape in the car, to see where his victim will always be. In addition to sneaking into houses, this guy already looks like a former CIA agent. At this point I was laughing at everything that didn't make sense.
End of the Spoilers
The film is directed by Derrick Borte, who debuted some time ago with The Joneses, which got good reviews, but then has made regular films, some directly in the home format, like American Dreamer.
The star of the film is Russell Crowe, who plays the fat piscopata, who will devote the entire film to destroying Rachel's life, killing all her loved ones, just because this woman honked at him at the traffic light. Crowe will have an evil look on his face at all times, as if he were on a forced diet, and that's why he looks so angry. He's a man who just wants to destroy the world. The actor surely remembered not winning the mini-series award and he gets angry easily.
Caren Pistorius plays Rachel, the victim and our heroine. The woman who will do anything to protect her son Kyle's life. The thirty year old actress, we have seen her in series like Blue Rose and Offspring, as well as in the movie Mortal Engine.
Unhinged lasts half an hour, the story passes quickly and is typical of the genre. The cat and mouse hunt, the bad guy chasing the good guy. The villain killing, torturing and turning the life of a good person into hell.
Enjoy it for what it is. Quick movies, that later we won't even remember the title.
My Ranking: 2.5/5
Trailer
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