unhinged movie review

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The license plates in the unnamed state where the thriller “Unhinged” takes place read: “America’s Heartland.” The suggestion is that the horrors that occur over the course of one inordinately eventful day—and the ire that prompts them in the first place—could happen anywhere, even in a seemingly wholesome, secure part of the country. (For the record, “Unhinged” was shot in Louisiana, land of the film production tax breaks.)

That much is clear from the montage of misery accompanying the opening titles in director Derrick Borte ’s down-and-dirty picture. We see images of traffic jams, car crashes, rioting and random violence matched with talk radio reports of job losses, general despair and—this is crucial because it lays the groundwork for the mayhem to follow—woefully underfunded and understaffed police forces. “You gotta protect yourself these days,” says a random, worried voice. “We are going backwards,” echoes another.

But the script from writer Carl Ellsworth (“Disturbia,” “ The Last House on the Left ”) seeks to exploit the malaise blanketing the nation for cheap and gory B-movie jolts. Rather than explore legitimate feelings of disenfranchisement throughout the United States (which, arguably, led to our current presidential administration), “Unhinged” wallows in such fears and frustrations in tawdry fashion. You’re right to be mistrustful of your neighbors, it seems to say. After all, this is a world where a minor conflict at a traffic light can lead to an all-day road-rage chase with multiple bloody bodies in its wake.

Russell Crowe is the chaos agent driving this paranoid pursuit, literally and figuratively. Known only as The Man—because he could be any of us, get it?—Crowe is mind-bogglingly overqualified to play this thinly drawn character. So much so, that it makes you wonder why he would say yes. But the few pleasures “Unhinged” offers come from the highs and lows he manages to maneuver. The Man is either rampaging with all his bearded, burly might, which is unintentionally amusing, or he’s toying with his prey in a menacing rumble, which is sporadically effective. Like a malevolent Foghorn Leghorn in an oversized pickup truck, Crowe’s character is subtly menacing at first but eventually reveals himself to be impossibly indestructible.

The target of his fury is a harried hairdresser named Rachel ( Caren Pistorius ), a single mom who’s already having a rough morning by the time she clashes with The Man. Running late as usual, she’s dashing out the door to drive her tween son Kyle ( Gabriel Bateman ) to school but finds herself trapped in traffic no matter where she turns. Between squabbling with her ex and losing her best client, she’s in an understandably foul mood when she gets stuck behind The Man, and perhaps lays on the horn of her beat-up Volvo station wagon a bit too heavily when he refuses to go on a green light.

But she doesn’t know what we know about The Man from the film’s fiery prologue: He’s having a worse morning than she is, and he’s dangerous.

The bulk of “Unhinged” finds The Man stalking and terrorizing Rachel and everyone dear to her, including her best friend/divorce lawyer ( Jimmi Simpson ) in one particularly tense scene at a coffee shop. But despite moments like that, which Borte executes effectively, we’re mostly left with the icky feeling that we’re expected to sympathize with this guy for snapping. He’s been dealt a bad hand. Who could blame him, right? The Man is unleashing his anger in an extreme manner, but fundamentally he’s not wrong, “Unhinged” appears to believe. This becomes an increasingly untenable position, though, as Crowe’s character grows more brazen and the death count rises. The way he physically brutalizes Rachel and her young son is especially gratuitous, although it does result in a shocking act of violence that might best be described as Chekhov’s haircutting scissors. Pistorius does solid work throughout in expressing various states of panic, but she’s mainly reacting to Crowe’s improbable omnipresence.

“Unhinged” bills itself as the movie that’s finally reopening theaters this weekend, depending on where you live, following the Covid-19 shutdown more than five months ago. The distributor behind it initially intended to do so back on July 1, which clearly was optimistic. Maybe the film's frantic chases and crashes leading up to a wild climax are a lot more fun with other people in an audience, hooting and hollering with muffled excitement beneath their masks. But I doubt it.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

Unhinged (2020)

Rated R for strong violent content, and language throughout.

Russell Crowe as The Man

Gabriel Bateman as Kyle

Caren Pistorius as Rachel

• Derrick Borte
• Carl Ellsworth

Cinematographer

• Brendan Galvin
• Michael McCusker
• Steven Mirkovich
• Tim Mirkovich
• David Buckley

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Unhinged Reviews

Road rage gets a new and definitive definition.

Full Review | Dec 26, 2022

Screenwriter Carl Ellsworth and director Derrick Borte leave you gasping in a brutal thriller with a cynical view of the rage festering in all of us.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 23, 2022

Stay for Crowe, who gives a performance in Unhinged that’s like a deranged rhino, or leave for the anemic plot that stands for nothing.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 2, 2022

Unhinged's story may seem simple and straightforward, but this raucous road rage thriller still terrifies thanks to Russell Crowe's chilling commitment in the lead role.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 1, 2022

“Unhinged” is a simple yet satisfying thriller that by the end turns into full-on maniacal horror.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 21, 2022

Mostly awful, but it somehow peaks into something sublimely awful by the third act.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Aug 10, 2021

Russell Crowe action flick has no deep meaning, it's just tense, fast entertainment that doesn't outstay its welcome for a lean 93 minutes.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 18, 2021

Whoa, this was a lot more and intense than I had expected it to be. This is definitely one of Russell Crowe's most nerve-wracking and anxiety-inducing performances

Full Review | Original Score: 8.9/10 | May 26, 2021

As a study of an emasculated man seeking revenge it brings to mind Falling Down, Michael Douglas' 1993 black comedy, except Unhinged is all darkness and no comedy.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 29, 2021

If there's an underlying message other than 'don't be rude to other drivers because they might be having a worse day than you,' I missed it.

Full Review | Jan 27, 2021

An honest and straightforward entertainment, as violent as viciously fun.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jan 12, 2021

It's just a shame the end product feels so middle of the road, something fun to watch in the moment but ultimately forgettable

Full Review | Jan 5, 2021

The film's gaze skillfully mixes contextual projection... and knows how to avoid demagoguery no matter how well it embraces the spectacle. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 4, 2021

A quick, fun little nail-biter.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 12, 2020

As long as it doesn't even pretend to have thoughts in its ugly little head, it's reasonably okay at being disreputable... Unfortunately, it tries to think rather too often.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 27, 2020

No one shows anger boiling in the stomach quite like Crowe, who finds a way to kick-start this material - vicious trash, at a glance - by touring us around a mindset that's impressively credible in the circumstances.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 22, 2020

A slasher movie on wheels. It ain't for the squeamish.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 21, 2020

This trashy anxiety-fest completely delivers upon what little it promises.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2020

The bones of an enjoyable thriller are here. But there's no meat on them.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Nov 13, 2020

...a briskly-paced and unflinching thriller...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 12, 2020

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Russell Crowe’s Road-Rage Thriller Unhinged Isn’t Worth Getting COVID-19 For

In 1993, Michael Douglas was an angry white man on a rampage across Los Angeles in Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down . Douglas’s unnamed character, listed as “D-Fens” after his vanity license plate, was an unemployed, unwell defense engineer whose accrued grievances — about the crime, and the heat, and high prices, and also the homeless, and the immigrants, and the ex-wife he wasn’t allowed within a hundred yards of — finally boiled over in the opening scene. D-Fens, so convinced in his heart that he’d been denied a life he was owed, was a prescient creation — had the character made it to 2016, screenwriter Ebbe Roe Smith insisted , he would have voted for Trump. He was a spiritual successor to Howard Beale and Travis Bickle, maybe, but what set Falling Down apart was the wobbly way it insisted its protagonist was an Everyman, slipping between sympathizing with and satirizing his actions. If that was meant to be the point — “I’m the bad guy?” D-Fens asks, aghast, when confronted by the cops at the end — it’s one disregarded by those viewers who hold him up as a misunderstood hero.

There’s no danger of the same kind of bad fandom when it comes to Russell Crowe’s character in Unhinged , a thriller directed by Derrick Borte and written by Carl Ellsworth. He’s introduced sitting in his truck outside the New Orleans–area house he used to live in at 4 a.m., numbing himself out on opioids and fiddling with his wedding ring until he’s ready to break down the door, kill everyone inside, and torch the place. He sure seems meant to bring D-Fens to mind though, in his lack of a name (he’s credited only as “Man”), and in the details of his backstory — laid off by an auto plant after an injury, history of domestic disturbances, divorce, restraining order — doled out via news reports that play in the background throughout the movie. The Man is D-Fens as an untrammeled villain, a variation on the character who’s focused all his fury on a single person instead of doling it out across the city. His chosen target is Rachel (a wan Caren Pistorius), a frazzled woman in the middle of her own divorce who’s late in dropping her son Kyle (Gabriel Bateman) off to school. She has the misfortune to honk at the Man when he lingers too long at a stoplight that’s turned green. He asks her to say sorry, she refuses, and he growls at her that “I don’t think you really know what a bad day is, but you’re going to find out.”

Rachel doesn’t know that the Man has nothing left to lose, and that he’s decided that teaching her this lesson is a good enough way to go out as any. What seems like an unpleasant vehicular encounter escalates into a killing spree after the Man follows Rachel to a gas station where he steals her phone. The cat-and-mouse, station wagon-versus-pickup truck chase that follows isn’t especially exciting, though the aims of Unhinged are broadcast as low from the start — there’s a whole preface of news clips stressing a decline in police resources that seems there to explain why no one can catch the Man, even when he’s murdering someone in the middle of a crowded restaurant. These bursts of brutality are less effective than Crowe’s victim-blaming mutterings. Covered in flop sweat, with the puffy face of someone who hasn’t slept for days, Crowe looks appropriately, sometimes majestically, like shit. When his character rants about the injustice of divorce attorneys, his willingness to commit suicide by cop, and how “every sacrifice that I’ve ever made in my invisible life has been dismissed, judged, ignored,” he snaps into focus as a modern-day bogeyman — the homegrown terrorist who’s channeled his feelings of resentment and invisibility into apocalyptic violence.

But elsewhere he feels like a random, glowering baddie, not sharply drawn enough to make Unhinged anything more than a lackluster thriller. “ Falling Down is hardly the first movie to feature a white man flailing self-righteously in a sea of people who are either not male or not white or neither and who are messing up his game,” Carol Clover wrote in Sight & Sound in 1993, when Schumacher’s film came out. “What distinguishes it from the run-of-the-mill backlash fantasy is the demographic precision with which it defines that man’s consciousness.” In the 27 years since, that consciousness — that insistence, against all evidence, that white men have it the worst — has been an agonizingly unignorable influence in American politics and culture. It feels like a failure of nerve on the part of Unhinged that, after sketching out the Man so efficiently, the movie then ultimately presents itself as one about road rage, a “you never know who’s behind the wheel of the car next to you” cautionary tale. In untethering the character from time and context, Unhinged defangs him as well, reducing him from an avatar of a grander ugliness to just a guy who’s gone off the rails after having been left behind. And without that, there’s nothing much in the movie that’s worth remembering, much less risking a possible COVID-19 infection to see. For a movie marking a week in which theaters are reopening, Unhinged feels a lot like a movie that would be best caught on cable someday.

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Unhinged review: Russell Crowe is monstrously good in this tense, road-rage thriller

Derrick borte’s film is tense, slick, and finds just enough mildly ludicrous causes of death to earn its high-concept thriller credentials, article bookmarked.

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Dir: Derrick Borte. Starring: Russell Crowe, Caren Pistorius, Gabriel Bateman, Jimmi Simpson, and Austin P McKenzie. 15 cert, 93 mins

Unhinged opens with the sound of breathing – heavy and laboured, like a dragon slumbering deep underground. It belongs not to a creature, though, but to a man named Tom Hunter ( Russell Crowe ), who’s sitting in his parked car outside of a suburban home. He looks haggard, like he’s been emptied of his soul, as he strikes a match and silently watches it burn. Tom gets out, walks up to the front door, and caves it in with a hammer. Without pause, his target shifts from wood to flesh. He kills the man inside, then a woman, offscreen. We hear her screams. News reports later tell us that the woman was Tom’s ex-wife; the man was someone with whom she’d had an affair.

It’s a disquietingly familiar image of domestic violence – an affecting one, too. But the opening credits that follow belong to an entirely different story. Over ominous chords, written by composer David Buckley, we hear TV and radio announcers speak of all kinds of societal ills – narcissism, lawlessness, and directionless anger. We’re shown videos of people taking selfies, driving recklessly, and skirmishing in supermarkets. “People have so much coming at them, their brains can’t handle it,” an anchor declares, their tone appropriately apocalyptic.

Unhinged is, in fact, a film about road rage . Its protagonist, Rachel (Caren Pistorius), has hit a personal rock bottom; she’s mid-divorce, without her salon, and can’t cover the costs of her ailing mother’s healthcare. And now, she’s slept through her alarm and risks making her son late for school (again) and missing an appointment with an important client. She’s not in the best of moods. While stuck in traffic, she rants about how there are too many cars and too many people.

When a car fails to accelerate at a green light, she honks her horn and speeds past it. In her eyes, this is garden-variety aggression – a daily part of any driver’s routine. The man in the other car has different ideas. It’s Tom, fresh from his opening scene rampage. He thinks Rachel can only truly atone for her rudeness by experiencing “what a bad day really is”. What follows is a very bad day, indeed. He chases her through side streets and motorways, waiting on an answer to his ultimatum. He’s going to kill someone she loves. Who does she pick?

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Derrick Borte’s film is tense, slick, and finds just enough mildly ludicrous causes of death to earn its high-concept thriller credentials. But it’s impossible to watch a man pursue a strange woman, having brutally killed an ex-partner, and ignore the gendered nature of the threat on display here. Carl Ellsworth’s script certainly doesn’t side-step the subject. Tom fits the profile of the violent men’s rights activist to a tee, as he rants to Rachel’s divorce lawyer pal (Jimmi Simpson) about how he “f***s over decent men for a living”. And Crowe, with his southern drawl, weaves threats into every syllable. Tom is a man of crocodile smiles. It’s a surprising, but astonishing turn for an actor who forged his career on big-screen heroics. If Les Misérables (2012) offered him a chance to play the villain, Unhinged is his chance to play the monster – the Dark Universe, and his role as Jekyll and Hyde, now thankfully scuppered.

And yet, the film also thinks of Tom as a road rage bogeyman, sent from the abyss to teach Rachel a few lessons about driver’s etiquette. After all, Rachel is guilty of misplaced anger, too. But these are very different kinds of rage on display. One is universal – no matter the gender, race, or age. The other, so dangerous in its implications, comes only from a man’s embittered sense of entitlement. Unhinged acknowledges both, but finds itself torn between them.

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Unhinged review – darkly funny tale of road rage

Russell Crowe’s car chase thriller is an entertaining send-up of emasculated men

S tuck in standstill traffic, single mum Rachel (the sparky Caren Pistorius) is late dropping her son, Kyle (Gabriel Bateman), at school and on the verge of being fired from an already precarious freelance hairdressing gig. Her ex-husband is being difficult and her ailing mother has recently been relocated to a care home. When she honks her horn and impatiently overtakes a grey pick-up truck, it’s understandable. Unfortunately, its driver is also feeling fragile. Unnamed in the film but listed in its credits as “The Man”, a hulking, sweating, highly medicated Russell Crowe demands an apology. “I need you to learn what a bad day is and I need you to learn how to say sorry,” he seethes, attempting to run her over for the remainder of the film.

This zippy car chase thriller shares some DNA with Joel Schumacher’s 1993 black comedy Falling Down , which saw Michael Douglas’s white collar divorcee clashing with Los Angeles’s multicultural residents after abandoning his car and making his way across the city on foot. Both are darkly funny studies and send-ups of emasculated men, with Crowe’s character claiming to have been “dismissed as the unworthiest fuck to ever walk the planet”.

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Russell Crowe brings wounded gravitas to hammy, nonsensical road-rage thriller Unhinged : Review

Robert De Niro knows exactly how to do it, and Joaquin Phoenix too; Clint Eastwood pretty much invented it. Russell Crowe 's own career owes no small part to the mad men he's portrayed on screen. But rarely has white male rage been poured into an instrument as aggressively blunt as Unhinged (in theaters Aug. 21) — a revenge thriller so furiously rudimental that a more fitting title might have contained no words at all, just a guttural Braveheart howl.

Crowe's unnamed protagonist doesn't even deign to speak in the opening scene; hunched in the driver's seat outside a neat suburban home, he gazes through the windshield, pops a pill, thoughtfully twists off his wedding ring — then steps out soundlessly and reigns destruction.

The flurry of news clips and sound bites playing over the credits that follow work overtime to tell us that This Is a Thing: the free-floating anger and public incidents; a society of under-policed, overwrought citizens pushed to their breaking points and brawling in the streets.

Clips, apparently, that everyone but newly separated single mom Rachel (South African actress Caren Pistorius) has seen when she scrambles to get her young son (Gabriel Bateman) to school and start her day as a hairdresser. So when some jerk in a pickup truck fails to take his foot off the brake at a green light, she honks, and then honks again.

Oh, Rachel. "Know what a courtesy tap is, young man?" Crowe's nameless driver drawls at the boy, leaning out his window. "It's light, it's friendly. Just like you're tryin' to get somebody's attention." By then, of course, light and friendly have long left the building. Heavy and hateful is the new game, and there will be more than a few brutally effective moments in the mayhem that follows; one diner scene, in particular, plays out in a slow, sticky crescendo of dread.

But the screenplay, by Carl Ellsworth (2012's Red Dawn ), feels like a sketch done in Sharpie, and director Derrick Borte ( American Dreamer ) can't seem to meet a metaphor he won't belabor or a point he doesn't hammer home twice — so that what could have been a pleasingly lean and mean kind of B-movie becomes somehow both over-egged and underbaked: a slurry of awkward exposition, silly coincidence, and a storyline so scant that even at 90 minutes it feels drastically padded.

It doesn't help that Pistorius' Rachel spends the first 75 of it like a woman who's never seen a horror movie — if there were noises in the basement, she'd run right down to investigate, with a plastic spork in her hand — and the final 15 like a ninja assassin who invented them. And that it subjects her to every last terror cliché, from the just-when-you-thought-you-outran-him jump scare to the phone battery that waits until it's most crucially needed to die.

The movie's biggest injustice though, besides its hammy missteps into social commentary, may be what it does to Crowe. Fleshy and bearded, he's like a wounded grizzly, letting all the shades of pain and fury play across his face with a nuance that the script itself has little time for. By the last outrageous set piece, it nearly feels like a miracle that he hasn't turned directly to the camera to roar, "Are you not entertained ?" This gladiator deserves better, and so does his audience. C-

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Unhinged Review

31 Jul 2020

The opening sluice of blood and lighter fluid in Unhinged makes for an excellent entrée into this single-minded thriller. In the wee hours of a rainy suburban night, a troubled-looking man ( Russell Crowe ) sits in his car, glimpsed through agonised close-ups; his brow seemingly furrowed in anguish, or giving the audience a pointed look at the wedding band on his finger before he removes it. When he gets out of his car and approaches someone’s house, claw hammer in hand, we realise we are not seeing this film’s hero at work. Thus begins Unhinged , along with a fun and strikingly ’90s-style opening montage — grim, jaggedly edited, and depicting the increasing drama of contemporary living: violent altercations between strangers, road rage on the rise, overwork, war, pollution, and other hugely general signs of social decay. The blunt force of this dramatic opening sets the tone well: what follows is not subtle, but it is vaguely satisfying.

Slickly paced, provocatively violent in small bursts, and truly shocking at times.

The introduction to Rachel (Caren Pistorius), our protagonist, is comparatively sedate. Her high-stress existence involves being a newly single mother, crowded into a house with her brother, his girlfriend and her son, while her ex-husband fights to take that house away in their divorce settlement. She is also late dropping her son at school, and so, with a million things on her mind, she jumps into the car with him and sets events into motion which will prove unstoppably traumatic. When she honks at and overtakes a portly man in a pick-up truck, he pulls up alongside her at the next red light and, mock-chivalrous, offers an apology if she will return one. She does not; he becomes enraged. His next words, delivered with deliciously terrifying intent from Crowe, remind her that she doesn’t even know the meaning of a bad day. But he’ll show her one.

And he certainly does, as he begins to stalk her and threaten her loved ones. Slickly paced, provocatively violent in small bursts, and truly shocking at times, Unhinged comes from the brain of screenwriter Carl Ellsworth, whose credits include thrillers like Red Eye , in which most of the action takes place on a commercial flight. This film is similarly mostly contained to the interior of cars on freeways, with the inevitable smash-’em-up road terror you’d expect. But it also includes bonus wreckage in diners, family living rooms and beyond; Crowe’s hulking menace fills whatever space he’s in, literally and figuratively. He gets gleefully deranged lines such as, “Your little brother is sitting in a puddle of lighter fluid and his own piss.”

Filmed with a glum, grey filter of foreboding, Unhinged is not exactly rewriting the thriller genre with its familiar victimised heroine and determined psycho in pursuit. But it is genuinely compelling — especially when the film reveals the cause of Crowe’s irrational hatred for perceived rudeness.

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Unhinged (I) (2020)

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Common sense media reviewers.

Crowe's violent road rage thriller has mixed messages.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Messages aren't positive, but takeaway is to cut p

Primary characters aren't role models, but a high

Extreme violence, including graphic murders with s

A young couple lives together. Divorce is a theme

Strong language includes "hell," "s--t," and sever

Playing Fortnite has a useful strategy application

Prescription pill use is shown negatively.

Parents need to know that Unhinged is a violent road rage thriller starring Russell Crowe. It takes the standard features of many people's daily commute -- ridiculous traffic, short tempers, and distracted driving -- and ramps them up to horrific levels. Beneath the slasher-film amounts of violence, which…

Positive Messages

Messages aren't positive, but takeaway is to cut people some slack on the road because you never know who you're dealing with.

Positive Role Models

Primary characters aren't role models, but a high school student is shown to be smart, courteous, caring, punctual, conscientious. Positive representations include people of color cast in supporting authority roles like school principal, helpful police officer.

Violence & Scariness

Extreme violence, including graphic murders with sharp instruments and brutal, bloody beatings. People and house set on fire. Many instances of dangerous driving leading to car crashes and a person being run over.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A young couple lives together. Divorce is a theme of adult frustration.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language includes "hell," "s--t," and several uses of "f--k."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Playing Fortnite has a useful strategy application. An older Volvo is featured in a way that sends a message of safety with capabilities under duress. A sympathetic character uses an iPhone, and one of its features is a plot point.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Unhinged is a violent road rage thriller starring Russell Crowe . It takes the standard features of many people's daily commute -- ridiculous traffic, short tempers, and distracted driving -- and ramps them up to horrific levels. Beneath the slasher-film amounts of violence, which includes graphic on-camera stabbings, burnings, beatings, and tons of blood, the takeaway is arguably that perhaps we should be more patient with one another, since we don't know who's on the receiving end of the bird we're flipping or what they're going through at the moment. Or, at least in this case, what drug they might have taken, as the villain is a prescription pill popper. You can also expect strong language ("s--t," "f--k") and some product placement (Volvo, iPhone). To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (9)
• Kids say (8)

Based on 9 parent reviews

Mature Themes, Violent, 17+

Don’t let kids anywhere near this, what's the story.

In UNHINGED, Rachel (Caren Pistorius) is running late getting her teenage son to school -- again -- and traffic is causing her morning to unravel. So she drives around traffic on the shoulder. And then, when a stoplight turns green and the pickup in front of her doesn't move, she lays into her horn. The driver of the truck ( Russell Crowe ) catches up to her at the next light. An imposing figure looming above her station wagon, he addresses Rachel through her son's window, and says that it was rude to not first be given a "courtesy tap." He apologizes for zoning out and explains that he's had a rough day, and he asks for a similar apology from her. Clearly uncomfortable, she refuses to give on the ground that she has nothing to apologize for. The driver then becomes not just hostile, but murderous, seeking to find and kill everyone associated with Rachel.

Is It Any Good?

Director Derrick Borte keeps viewers on the edge of their passenger seat, revving up identifiable tension and driving through the most extreme version of a scenario many people worry about. Unhinged accesses the fear and adrenaline that lots of people experience when they're involved in any kind of confrontation with a stranger in another car. The film is essentially one long, high-stress chase, with a little cat-and-mouse action on the side. Most of its 90 minutes takes place behind the wheel, and what doesn't is bloody and murderous. It's chilling and recognizable, but it's not believable -- there's just too much that could be solved an easier way.

To enjoy the film, you can't overthink it -- but maybe you should. On face value, Unhinged revolves around a message that adults may want to share with teen drivers (or, as we see in the movie, that teens may want to share with agro-driving adults). The film offers an indelible way to say, "Hey, we should all be a little nicer on the road, and, incidentally, you never know what's going on in the life of a bad driver." But if you dig deeper, the movie's subliminal messaging -- and its timing -- is concerning. We already know that women apologize far more than men do. So to have a threatening male character continue to demand that a woman apologize -- as the driver does here -- plays into a problematic power dynamic. Curiously, both Rachel and the driver are going through divorces. Which kind of makes you wonder what, exactly, motivated Carl Ellsworth to write this screenplay, because the fact that Crowe is a murderer on a rampage is underplayed next to the fact that this is really the ultimate comeuppance for a woman. If anything, it feels like ex-husband fantasy fiction.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Unhinged . How does it compare to what you'd expect to see in a slasher movie? Would you categorize this as a horror movie, or a thriller? Why are those genres sometimes hard to distinguish?

Video game strategy becomes a solution in the film. Can games have a positive impact on kids?

Why do you think the story revolved around Rachel's unwillingness to apologize? What's the power dynamic of a situation in which a large man upset about his divorce terrorizes a small woman who's also going through a divorce just because she didn't apologize?

Why do you think road rage has become a problem? What can people do to diffuse situations that involve a frustrated driver?

Movie Details

• In theaters : August 21, 2020
• On DVD or streaming : November 17, 2020
• Cast : Russell Crowe , Jimmi Simpson , Caren Pistorius
• Director : Derrick Borte
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Solstice Studios
• Genre : Thriller
• Topics : Cars and Trucks
• Run time : 91 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : strong violent content, and language throughout
• Last updated : December 22, 2022

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Screen Rant

Unhinged review: russell crowe's road rage thriller is amusingly trashy.

Between its concise action and Crowe's scenery-chewing, Unhinged makes for an amusingly trashy B-movie, even if its social commentary never congeals.

"Only in theaters" has been pretty much the defining feature of the marketing campaign for Unhinged , a film that probably would've come and gone with little fuss if Solstice Studios hadn't been determined to make it the first wide release to play on the big screen since the COVID-19 lockdowns began. It's the sort of low-grade angry white man on a rampage thriller that recalls the late Joel Schumacher's Falling Down , combined with a touch of Joker 's "We live in a society"-ness. For better or worse, though, director Derrick Borte is more invested in serving up violent mayhem than digging into the story's subtext, with a game Russell Crowe hamming it up as an antagonist listed simply as the "Man" in the credits. Between its concise action and Crowe's scenery-chewing, Unhinged makes for an amusingly trashy B-movie, even if its social commentary never congeals.

Caren Pistorius costars here as Rachel Hunter, a working-class mom who's going through a challenging divorce and trying to keep everything together, all while caring for her son Kyle (Gabriel Bateman) and allowing her brother Fred (Austin P. McKenzie) to live with her until he's able to afford his own place. One day, already running late to work and delayed by rush hour traffic while driving Kyle to school, Rachel honks at and bypasses the driver of a truck who refuses to move at a green-light. Before she knows it, the man behind the wheel (Crowe) follows her and pulls up next to her at another intersection, demanding she apologize. When she doesn't, he continues to follow her, and it quickly becomes clear: he's not going to take no for an answer.

Related: Every Major Movie Still Releasing in 2020

Following a bleak prologue that illustrates the "Man" is both extremely unstable and prone to violence, Unhinged quickly establishes its core message - modern life is so stressful, anyone could snap at a given moment - thought a heavy-handed montage composed of what appears to be real-life road rage incidents and similar occurrences of people lashing out. From there, its narrative follows a trajectory routinely identical to that of writer Carl Ellsworth's script for Wes Craven's Red Eye , another suspense-driven thriller that revolves around a woman being terrorized by a menacing man under otherwise innocuous circumstances. But what it lacks for unpredictability or subtlety, Unhinged tends to make up for with succinct storytelling, never wasting a moment of its lean runtime or forgetting to pay-off the many plot points it sprinkles like bread crumbs on the way to its third act.

The downside to this approach is that Unhinged often brings up intriguing questions (like whether having cameras everywhere one turns actually keeps us safer when someone violent is on the loose), only to brush them aside and move on to the next scene. Borte and Ellsworth's decision to stay vague about what, precisely, pushed Crowe's character over the edge can also be a double-edged sword; they avoid stigmatizing the mentally-ill by portraying him as being someone with a long history of generalized issues, yet fail to really delve into the toxic sense of entitlement that's always boiling beneath his surface and prompts him to project his problems onto those he sees as the uppity women of the world (and the men who enable them). Crowe's performance isn't all that enlightening, either. As engaging as he can be, employing a Southern gentlemanly manner in-between bouts of bug-eyed fury and sullen grimacing, his portrayal of the "Man" comes off feeling closer to a caricature than a real person, especially when paired up against Pistorius' grounded and relatable portrait of a parent who's already having a difficult time keeping their head above water.

This probably explains why Unhinged is at its strongest whenever Crowe is tormenting Rachel, whether it's by taunting her as he threatens to harm those closest to her (and makes good on his promise whenever possible) or putting the pedal to the metal as he relentlessly pursues her in his vehicle like he's the enigmatic trucker from Steven Spielberg's Duel . The movie's actual car chase sequences are invigoratingly sturdy in their construction thanks to Jack A. Marta's steady cinematography and the stable editing by Michael McCusker and Steve and Tim Mirkovich, with hurricane season New Orleans serving as a fitting backdrop to the tense and uncomfortable proceedings. Things get a little shaky off-road, admittedly, as Borte struggles to find unexpected ways of showing the "Man" stalk Rachel and her loved ones in regular domestic settings. But much like its antagonist, Unhinged compensates for its lack of wiliness with brute force, delivering some savage deaths along the way.

For all of its marketing's attempts to paint the film as being particularly relevant in the midst of the ongoing pandemic (with just about everyone feeling even more stressed out than usual), Unhinged is far too ham-fisted and ridiculous to offer much more than a fleetingly cathartic experience. It's entertaining enough to recommend as a home viewing option down the road, but even if there wasn't a continuing health crisis keeping theaters in major areas closed down, those interested would do better to ignore any efforts to sell this would-be provocative social-thriller as anything more than a thick slice of B-movie cheese that's best enjoyed whenever it becomes available on digital and Blu-ray. (Which is not to say that any movie is worth braving the theater during a pandemic, obviously.) Until then, you can pass the time waiting for this one by rewatching Crowe's bonkers promo ads, which more or less encapsulate the essence of the film anyway.

NEXT: Unhinged Trailer

Unhinged is now playing in U.S. theaters. It is 90 minutes long and is rated R for strong violent content, and language throughout.

Key Release Dates

‘Unhinged’: Russell Crowe Has Road Rage — Are You Not Entertained? (No)

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Known as the Russell Crowe road-rage movie, Unhinged hits theaters — or at least the ones that dare to open stateside — on August 21st. Is it worth going masked and still risk infection to sit in a poorly ventilated multiplex, no matter how socially distanced, to see Crowe play demolition derby in daytime traffic? It’s your call. Even marking on a B-movie curve, Unhinged is running on empty.

All due respect to the Gladiator Oscar winner, who tries mightily to bring something relatably human to his role as a killing machine in a pickup truck. Are we not entertained? For a few minutes, maybe. In a terrifying opening scene, “the Man,” as Crowe’s character is pretentiously billed, sits in his car lighting matches and removing his wedding ring. Then he enters a house with an axe, chopping away at his ex and her new love, and burns down the place he once called home. The movie eventually reveals that the Man, who lives in “the City” (it’s unnamed, but mostly New Orleans) has been fired just before his pension kicked in, deserted by his cheating wife and treated as invisible by impolite society.

Cut to the home of Rachel (Caren Pistorius), a single mom who’s also living in a pressure cooker. A freelance hair stylist dumped by a client for tardiness, Rachel is dealing with a contentious divorce, a mother in a nursing home, a brother and his girlfriend who are sponging off her,  and a son, Kyle (Gabriel Bateman), who worries that his mom will be late getting him to school. It’s on that drive that Rachel swerves around a truck that’s not moving at a green light. The driver is — you guessed it — the Man. He quickly pulls up beside Rachel asking for an apology she’s unwilling to give. In hiss mind, Rachel’s bad day is no excuse for not giving him at least a courtesy tap on her horn. Even Kyle agrees. Still no apology. “I don’t think you know what a bad day is,” says the Man. “But you’re gonna fucking learn.”

Up to this point, Unhinged gives off an enjoyably trashy vibe that suggests a real-time ride into hell. It also steals shamelessly from better, similarly-themed films, such as Duel, Falling Down and Changing Lanes. 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. There’s a scene in which he keeps Rachel’s coffee date at a diner with Andy (Jimmi  Simpson), a lawyer friend who the Man resents for screwing guys like him over in divorce suits. The graphic violence inflicted on Andy is just a taste of the horror to come.

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It’s here that the script by Carl Ellsworth ( Disturbia, The Last House on the Left remake) hits a pileup of improbabilities from which it never recovers. Though Pistorius is a solid actress, the script forces her into making so many boneheaded moves that that you want to scream at her in frustration. It’s quickly apparent that logic has no place here. The vehicular mayhem is sharply co-edited by Mike McKusker, who won an Oscar for Ford v Ferrari. But the plot goes nowhere at top speed, courtesy of carnage so repetitive that its makes 90 minutes seem like an eternity. Cars swerve, jacknife  and crash, showing license plates that read: “America’s Heartland.”

Get it? Right from the doc-style prologue, the filmmakers vainly and desperately labor to attach Unhinged to the explosive anger (insert closeup of Crowe fuming) currently demolishing civil discourse in our unraveling world. For that, you need characters who are more than cardboard, a script that is more than an outline, and a director who is more than a traffic cop. Failing on all three levels, the film should be stamped: License revoked.

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‘Unhinged’ Review: Russell Crowe Will Not Save Cinema with This Pointless Thriller

Kaleem aftab.

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Russell Crowe is going to save cinema! So goes the marketing push for road-rage thriller “ Unhinged ,” the first new film to open in theaters since lockdown. Yet it’s worth acknowledging that Crowe hasn’t exactly saved cinema in the past decade, where “Les Misérables,” “The Water Diviner” and “The Nice Guys” are the only moderate highlights. To buy into the hype around “Unhinged,” one has to accept the cult of Crowe and pretend that he’s still a relevant movie star, to pretend it’s no later than 2003’s “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” and Crowe remains a gladiator of cinema.

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.”

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“Unhinged” is the story of a man — conveniently credited as The Man, although at one point he claims to be called Tom Cooper — who’s clearly upset, as a pre-credit sequence makes clear, about his recent divorce. Eventually, he decides to take that frustration out on a hapless victim, and yes, that’s the whole movie.

It starts simply enough: The Man is sitting in his stationary car, the rain lashing down, the windshield wipers squishing back and forth. He tears off his wedding ring and lights a match. The proverbial fuse has been lit — but “Unhinged” doesn’t waste time on its blunt metaphors. In a brutal long take, the Man exits his car and takes out his anger on a houseful of occupants with a hammer. It might be the most disturbing cinematic gesture since S. Craig Zahler’s “Brawl in Cell Block 99,” but that grisly movie looks downright subtle by comparison.

From there, “Unhinged” plays like a trailer for its own one-note premise, with footage of cars veering into each other and supermarket brawls to set the scene. People are angry! The credits go on and on, the rage bludgeoned into our senses, and described by radio hosts in vague terms. Somehow, this quasi-documentary scene-setting ends up as the highlight of the movie, because everything that follows is a misogynistic mess.

Yes, “Unhinged” relies upon the threat of violence against women for tension. If that wasn’t bad enough, the film also suggests that some women might just deserve it because they’re bad mothers who wake up late when they need to take their son to school, fail to keep on top of work, and are indignant when powerful men try to tell them how they should behave.

Enter Rachel (Caren Pistorius), who wakes up on the sofa next to her book: “How to Help Your Child Cope with Divorce.” Rounding off her backstory, her lawyer calls to let her know her ex-husband wants half of her house. As she takes her son to work, they wind up in a series of gnarly traffic jams before getting caught behind an SUV filmed to look like an evil monster truck. The traffic lights change; the SUV doesn’t budge. Rachel beeps her horn — and The Man pulls up alongside her car, deeply offended and ready to unleash more violence on a helpless target. Premise complete.

The rest of “Unhinged” unfolds as a vile series of inhumane violence committed by The Man against his newfound scapegoat — not to mention anyone supporting Rachel, her lawyer, her brother, and even a good Samaritan at a gas station. The hunt is facilitated by a ludicrous bit of exposition as to why she doesn’t use a password on her cell phone, as The Man decries how men get mistreated in divorce proceedings, and the movie seems oddly sympathetic to that plight — much more than the ostensible hero of the scenario, who mostly just looks frightened throughout.

For a film so reliant on the telephone, it’s probably not a surprise that Crowe dials in his performance. Dressed heavy-set, Crowe is all grimaces and frowns in disgust at everything around him. His only emotional note is all ANGRY, resulting in a parody of his own performances. It’s Crowe on overdrive, and it’s horrible.

Setting aside the hype, should we have expected more? “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. While “Unhinged” has a few solid jolts (explosions, mostly) and a couple of unexpected plot twists, it often plays like an empty attempt to up the ante: Who will The Man kill next? It’s hard to get onboard a movie that revels in such outrageous violence yet offers little insights beyond the redundant tantrums of a really bad guy.

Borte’s CV contains a list of movies you will be thankful not to have seen. The best of the bunch, his 2009 effort “The Joneses,” starred Demi Moore and David Duchovny as actors pretending to have a perfect marriage so they can sell high-end products to all the miserable couples living in suburbia. He then made several films that struggled to find an audience (anyone remember 2015’s “H8RZ”?). 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. This time, it provides an excuse to repeat the same idea over and over again, grasping hopelessly for substance.

“Unhinged” is all the more infuriating because of the moment of its arrival, in a nearly empty release calendar that demands more movies to prove their worth. Many of us are desperate for the return of communal moviegoing experiences. But “Unhinged” plays less like an attempt to save the cinema than to burn it all down.

“Unhinged” opens Friday, July 31 in the UK and Friday, August 21 in the U.S.

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Unhinged – Movie Review (4/5)

Posted by Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard | Aug 18, 2020 | 4 minutes

UNHINGED is an intense thriller with lots of action and horror elements. Russell Crowe stars as a man with plenty of road rage and nothing to lose. You won’t touch that horn after watching this movie. Read our full Unhinged movie review here!

UNHINGED is a new thriller with a survival plot. This means it’s an intense 90-minute thriller with both action and horror elements. It’s all about road rage and the way in which we have no patience or restraint.

After seeing Russell Crowe in an extreme fit of road rage, you should definitely think again before honking your horn. If not, then you’ve certainly been warned of what might be the consequence!

Continue reading our Unhinged movie review below.

Russell Crowe is creepy as f**k

Honestly, I’ve always liked Russell Crowe, but in this movie, he is delivering a performance unlike any I’ve seen from him before. No, this isn’t an Oscar-winning performance. Nor is it meant to be. However, Russell Crowe is creepy as f**k in Unhinged . And  that is the point!

The woman he is hunting throughout the movie is portrayed by Caren Pistorius. You might know her from the movie  Cargo  (2017). She does a great job in Unhinged  even if she doesn’t get that much to work with. Still, she’s a survivor and (mostly) makes smart choices.

Outside of pissing off Russell Crowe’s character, obviously!

Her son is played by Gabriel Bateman, who is certainly a well-known child horror actor by now. He was in the new Chucky movie Child’s Play  from 2019 and in the horror movie Lights Out (2016). Jimmi Simpson ( Westworld ) also plays a small but important role which will definitely leave an impression!

Trust me on that one!

In general, the truly scary thing about the plot in Unhinged is the fact that  many people try to help. People do the right thing and act in smart and reasonable ways. It just doesn’t really help when you’re up against a psychopath with no real will to live!

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About The Author

Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard

I write reviews and recaps on Heaven of Horror. And yes, it does happen that I find myself screaming, when watching a good horror movie. I love psychological horror, survival horror and kick-ass women. Also, I have a huge soft spot for a good horror-comedy. Oh yeah, and I absolutely HATE when animals are harmed in movies, so I will immediately think less of any movie, where animals are harmed for entertainment (even if the animals are just really good actors). Fortunately, horror doesn't use this nearly as much as comedy. And people assume horror lovers are the messed up ones. Go figure!

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‘Unhinged’ review: a vicious and trashy road-rage thriller best enjoyed for what it is

Russell Crowe action flick has no deep meaning, it's just tense, fast entertainment that doesn’t outstay its welcome for a lean 93 minutes

C lips of real-life rage shot on security CCTV and smartphones pepper the opening credits of Unhinged . We should remain vigilant to avoid a wave of verbal and physical abuse in the street and on motorways. Director Derrick Borte seems to suggest it’s increasingly violent and unpredictable out there.

In the case of Russell Crowe’s lead character, that’s certainly true. In Unhinged , Crowe plays Tom Hunter, a hulking, wounded bear of a man who – based on the brutal revenge he enacts on his ex-wife and her current beau – categorically deserves the film’s titular adjective. His latest victim is tardy hairdresser Rachel (Caren Pistorius), who honks her car horn at Tom while sitting behind him at traffic lights as she takes her pre-pubescent son Kyle to school. Obviously Tom doesn’t take it kindly. He broods, stalks and murders with impunity for the rest of the film. Think of him as the human equivalent of the “See yer da’s taking the divorce well” meme with the violence turned up to 11.

It’s been two decades since we’ve seen Crowe at his absolute best in 1997 neo-noir classic L.A. Confidential and blockbusters such as Gladiator , while this century he’s sporadically dazzled in underrated bangers such as 2007’s American Gangster and 2016’s The Nice Guys . One gets the feeling he can play the evil antagonist of Unhinged in his sleep but he’s convincing as the demented bloke who flips, putting his all into punching, stabbing and burning Rachel’s loved ones. For her part Pistorius is sympathetic and steely as the indefatigable woman who must stop him to save herself and her son.

• READ MORE: Check out an exclusive clip from Russell Crowe road-rage thriller ‘Unhinged’

Borte, with help from David Buckley’s fear-inducing score, keeps anxiety levels high throughout. A particular highlight is when Tom calls Rachel from a breakfast meeting with her lawyer friend Andy. We know things will go sour and they do in the most memorable movie diner scene since You Were Never Really Here .

As with recent plane-cockpit thriller 7500 , the spectre of Steven Spielberg’s Duel looms large: the plot is just as minimal and singularly focused. However, many others will be reminded of Spielberg’s Jaws instead, except here Crowe is the shark. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Some of the greatest films ever made have paper-thin plots pinched from others and refashioned. After all, it’s not the size of the story it’s what you do with it that counts.

Aside from the mood-setting credits and contemporary tech, Unhinged could just as easily be called unfashionable. It’s a vicious, trashy thriller seemingly with no deep meaning, zeitgeist-surfing message or overt concessions to modernity. There’s just tense, fast entertainment that doesn’t outstay its welcome for a lean 93 minutes. It may be unsophisticated and perhaps a touch unoriginal but this mid-budgeted action-er has merit. As an added bonus, there’s an anguished moment where a device runs out of battery: cinematic homage to the inescapable truth that we are all slaves to our chargers.

• Director: Derrick Borte
• Starring: Russell Crowe, Caren Pistorius, Gabriel Bateman, Jimmi Simpson, Austin P. McKenzie
• Release date: July 31

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A Brutal 'Unhinged' Moment In Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare Was Improvised By Henry Cavill

If you've seen the trailers for Guy Ritchie's new movie "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare," there's one zany aspect that likely stood out to you (well, two if you count Alan Ritchson's arms). The historically-based action flick seems to be having fun with its Nazi-killing sequences, so much so that Henry Cavill's hero can be seen sticking his tongue out like a rock star on stage every time he kills a German soldier. It's a weird, memorable detail that was improvised on the spot by Ritchie and Cavill, according to the latter's new interview with Variety.

"It was a co-improvisation between Guy and myself," the actor explained when speaking to Variety at the film's premiere this week. Apparently, it came about when the writer-director, presumably having shot a few takes the expected way, started encouraging Cavill to get a bit wild. "Guy said, 'I want you to have more fun with it. Stick your tongue out or something,'" Cavill recalled. "And so we did and it stuck, as featured quite well in the trailer."

That tongue thing wasn't in the script

The film's first trailer features two moments in which Cavill's character mows down some Nazis while doing his best Gene Simmons impersonation, and one even pops up again in the first seconds of the Youtube version as one of those teaser-for-a-trailer intros that's so popular these days. It's a small detail, but one that makes the movie seem noticeably more outlandish — which, in a Ritchie film, isn't necessarily a bad thing .

According to Cavill, the improvised gesture helped inform his and Ritchie's idea of the former's character going forward. "That was the first moment where we decided Gus was going to be slightly unhinged in these moments, and that makes it more fun," he told Variety. It's true: there are plenty of movies with characters killing Nazis, but not that many that include a signature (the ragtag, justice-seeking killers of "Inglorious Basterds" are the cool exception that proves the rule). While /Film's Jeremy Mathai didn't much care for "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" overall , he also notes in his review that the ungentlemanly crew of the title is made up of "unstoppable (and impossibly charismatic) killing machines."

Did the real historical figure do this? Who's to say!

"The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" is technically based on a true story , and it includes real-life figures like Army Major Gus March-Phillipps, who formed the No. 62 Commando squad, as well as his fellow team members Geoffrey Appleyard (Alex Pettyfer) and Anders Lassen (Alan Ritchson). The film was inspired by former war reporter Damien Lewis' book "Churchill's Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII," and Richie's co-writer Arash Amel says the tongue thing would've been pretty on brand for the real March-Phillipps.

"It was totally in the essence of Gus March-Phillipps to behave exactly in that way," Amel told Variety, referencing a story in which the real March-Phillipps nearly landed a court martial after blowing up a bridge in Norway against British high command. "He lived to kill Nazis in the same way Alan Ritchson's character Anders Lassen lived to kill Nazis," Amel explained. "These guys were built from a different breed. He didn't stick his tongue out, but who knows, maybe he did?" While "who knows" isn't exactly proof in the affirmative, Amel's point seems to be that Cavill got to the heart of what March-Phillipps was like according to historical accounts. "He embodied Gus from start to finish," he told Variety.

"The Ministry of the Ungentlemanly Warfare" is now playing in theaters.

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Review: Lanthimos’ Oscar-winning “Poor Things” is an unhinged yet impactful masterpiece

Yorgos Lanthimos’ most recent film, “Poor Things” won four Oscars and was the second most awarded film of the night behind “Oppenheimer.” The film won Best Production Design, Best Hair and Makeup, Best Costume Design, and Emma Stone won Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance. After this sweep, I had to see the film. What I expected was a quirky journey through a Victorian world with stunning visuals, what I got was much, much more.

Our story follows Bella Baxter, a woman who lives incarcerated in her own home by her creator, Godwin Baxter, played expertly by Willem Dafoe. Godwin is a mad scientist who reanimated Bella back from the dead through an unexpected take on the classic Frankenstein tale. As the years pass, Bella’s mental state begins to grow gradually, but she is then set forth onto the world through the help of a sleazy lawyer who only sees her as a carnal consumer.

This film deals with topics such as female autonomy, discovery, and choice. Bella begins as naive, but as the film continues, she gains more knowledge about how the world works and questions her role in it, blazing her trail of enlightenment. This film, while having an excellent message for women, is not for the faint of heart. There is an abundance of sex scenes and nudity. If you can appreciate the sex scenes as an advancement of the plot and Bella’s growth, you will see that the film is a great philosophical treatise on the place of women in the world and how to regain one’s autonomy.

The performances were entrancing, with the standouts being Stone and Mark Ruffalo. Stone embodies Bella, showing her innocent state at the beginning and soon maturing into the powerful woman with the agency that she was destined to have. Ruffalo on the other hand is a pompous, lascivious, and virile man who steals every scene he is in. His character is one of the highlights of the year as he attempts to control Bella, but always cartoonishly falls flat on his face both physically and metaphorically. While God created Bella and can be arrogant and overbearing, he does genuinely care for Bella and is the closest thing she has to a father figure.

The design of the film is gorgeous with a steampunk Victorian London aesthetic that has the beginning filmed in black and white. As the world opens up to Bella, you can see color in all places as the sets look wonderful, showing modern yet old technology. An example of this is Godwin’s carriage which is a car but has a taxidermied horse head at the front of it. You can also see animals hybridized with other animals like a duck with the head of a dog. In the world of “Poor Things,” ordinary things are given a new life and perspective similar to our protagonist.

The cinematography was top-notch with many scenes being shot very awkwardly in the best way possible. Every scene lingered in the sense that you were not supposed to be there, but you were seeing every small minute detail and reaction which made it all the more relatable.

Overall, “Poor Things” is not a poor movie. It is rich with detail, plot, and amazing acting on all ends. This film is a visual trip in all senses of the word.

5 furious jumps out of 5.

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• poor things

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Movie review: 'Unsung Hero' more like band merch than insightful biopic

C inematic memoir can be a complex creative endeavor. Film is a collaborative medium, and memoir requires a certain acknowledgement of the author’s creation. Without that self-reflection, memoir can slip into murky, confusing territory. This space is where the new film “Unsung Hero” exists, which is billed as “A For King + Country Film.”

If you’re not yet aware of the Grammy winning Christian pop duo For King + Country, comprised of brothers Joel and Luke Smallbone, “Unsung Hero” will introduce you to their folksy family lore, if not their musical successes. The film is a biographical drama about the Smallbone family, a large brood from Australia who emigrated to Nashville, Tennessee, in the early 1990s, following father David’s dreams of working as a promoter in the music industry.

“Unsung Hero” is co-written and co-directed by Joel Smallbone (with Richard L. Ramsey), and he also stars in the film playing his own father, David, who eventually managed the music careers of For King + Country, and Joel’s sister Rebecca St. James. Their siblings work in the family business as managers, lighting directors and documentarians (they all make cameos in the film), and there’s a sense of can-do collaboration among the tight-knit Smallbone family. This theme runs throughout the film, and so it makes sense that Joel would undertake the telling of his family’s own story in such an intimate way.

Therefore, “Unsung Hero” is like a much more expensive extension of the camcorder home movies that serve as a running motif throughout. This isn’t just a music biopic or a family drama, it’s a presentation of a family narrative as told, and embodied, by the family themselves. A valid endeavor, to be sure, but important context when considering the work as a cultural product.

Joel Smallbone is an appealing actor, even if it is a bit distracting that he’s portraying his own father (he has described the experience as a “therapy session”). Joel is also a character in the film, as a child (Diesel La Torraca), while Daisy Betts plays Helen, the Smallbone matriarch and Joel’s mother. Helen is, of course, the unsung hero of this story, the heart and spine of the family who insists on keeping them together while David makes one last-ditch attempt to make it in the music industry in Nashville. Helen is the emotional center of the family and Betts is the emotional center of this film, her character unflagging in her determination, keeping spirits up as David’s dreams are slowly crushed.

The family of attractive Aussies arrive in the United States without a stick of furniture awaiting in their rental home, and they nest in beds of clothes while they get on their feet, with the help of a couple from their church (Lucas Black and Candace Cameron Bure). They clean houses and landscape yards, clip coupons and accept the charity that comes their way, reluctantly, on David’s part.

While David struggles with the dampening of his dreams, his daughter Rebecca (Kirrilee Berger) is just starting to embrace her musical aspirations. But she can’t chase them until her father gets over his own emotional obstacles and deep hurt at being rejected by the industry. It takes him some time to understand the advice given to him by his own father James (Terry O’Quinn) back in Australia, that his family isn’t in the way of what he wants, they are the way.

“Unsung Hero” follows a predictable narrative path of struggles and salvation, but it’s not a traditional music biopic — it doesn’t start with a record deal, it ends with one. The focus is on their hardships to get to that record deal, which is clearly what matters to filmmaker Joel Smallbone. It’s not the success, the Grammys, the stadium concerts, but the ways they stuck together, eked it out, allowed themselves to dream while sleeping on beds of clothing, thanks to their mother, who never let David’s challenges get in the way of her kids’ imaginations.

It’s a humble story, and it has the capacity to inspire in its simple message of perseverance, but the film itself, as an artistic product, feels limited in its observational scope, because the filmmaker doesn’t have any distance from the material. Smallbone is a fine actor, but alongside Ramsey, he’s a limited filmmaker. Their visual style is drab at best, and the storytelling lacks the kind of self-reflection that might elevate this project. As it is, “Unsung Hero” feels more like band merch than an insightful family portrait.

‘UNSUNG HERO’

2 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG (for thematic elements)

Running time: 1:54

How to watch: In theaters Friday

©2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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‘Unsung Hero’ Review: Music Dedicated to the One They Love

In fact, there’s a lot of singing in the clan whose members inspired this movie and who have racked up five Grammy Awards for their Christian recordings.

• Share full article

By Nicolas Rapold

In the faith-based drama “Unsung Hero,” an Australian concert promoter trying to earn a living makes a last-ditch move to Nashville with his wife and six children. Based on an actual family of musicians, it mostly plays as a treacly tribute to the parents of Joel and Luke Smallbone — a.k.a. the Christian pop duo For King & Country — and their sister, the singer Rebecca St. James.

Viewer beware: Between the uplift and the cringe, this movie may cause whiplash. Joel Smallbone plays his own father, David, who faces financial and reputational ruin after booking a big concert and failing to pack the house. He resettles the family in the United States, but no job materializes. His pep-talking spouse, Helen (Daisy Betts), and their beatific children pull up bootstraps and practically whistle while they work, but it’s not enough.

Community, humility and the power of prayer are the lessons on offer in their story, set in the 1990s, bathed in warm light and interspersed with home video segments. Fellow churchgoers pitch in, and David gets over himself; he secures auditions for his teenage daughter, Rebecca (Kirrilee Berger), who keeps breaking into dulcet song about how everything is beautiful. The outcome of “Unsung Hero,” as written and directed by Richard L. Ramsey and Joel Smallbone, is never in doubt, though the climax has a kicker line that genuinely surprises with its laughable shamelessness.

The family business has become a success: Rebecca, Joel and Luke have won five Grammys among them. But despite the fuzzy good intentions, it’s tough to make much of this making-of story.

Unsung Hero Rated PG. Running time: 1 hour 52 minutes. In theaters.

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‘Unsung Hero’ Review: The Family That Prays Together, Plays Together in Uplifting Faith-Based Biopic

A father uproots his family, moving them halfway around the world to avoid professional and personal ruin in this heartening weepie.

By Courtney Howard

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After David fails to sell out an Amy Grant concert due in part to a devastating nationwide recession, he loses all their savings. His backup plan to bring Eddie DeGarmo (Jonathan Jackson) over from the States also vanishes overnight. With no other career options, and with another baby on the way, he comes up with a risky proposal: move the family to the U.S. in hopes of representing an artist friend of his in Nashville. Their journey is fraught with obstacles, from a stressful customs detention to the psychological toll of David’s struggles as a provider. While the Smallbones suck up their pride to courageously face dire situations, they’re only human and there’s always a breaking point — one they must work together to mend.

The film works best when trafficking in poignant subtleties that provide a cumulative tear-shedding experience rather than the overt schmaltz which occasionally appears. Lovely grace notes are peppered throughout, from some much-needed tension-release humor (not to be confused with the requisite Vegemite and “Crocodile Dundee” jokes) to the heart-in-throat moment that reveals how Rebecca St. James chose her stage name. (Take that, “Solo: A Star Wars Story”!) Eagle-eyed audiences will find fun spotting a few family members making cameo appearances.

Katherine Tucker’s production design reflects the Smallbones’ evolution — as their familial bonds flourish, their environments change for the better. Cinematographer Johnny Derango discreetly shifts lighting cues in concert with narrative overtones. The frequent golden hour glow represents the presence of David’s perpetually perky father (Terry O’Quinn) even when he’s not on screen, culminating in the genuinely emotional finale’s intersection of a trio of character arcs.

All the siblings offer contributions to their familial sustenance, yet a handful aren’t as fleshed out as they should be given their survival was a psychologically taxing team effort — especially for the younger members thrust into adulthood prematurely. The focus is not only on the parents’ problems, but also on their teenage daughter’s struggle with confidence as a performer and songwriter. And of course, young Luke and Joel, who later in life went on to form the duo For King + Country (and who also provide the heartfelt closing credits ballad), get significant attention, delivering a couple of funny, self-aware bits. However, Ben, Daniel and Josh are relegated to characters defined by their jobs and not by their personalities. They’re left aching for greater incorporation within this testimony.

A finer point could’ve been made about the two sides of the charity coin — the family’s Christmas is saved through the kindness of others, but David feels like a charity case when their wealthy neighbors Jed (Lucas Black) and Kay (Candace Cameron Bure) help out with hefty medical bills. Still, the filmmakers espouse reassuring commentary on achieving the American Dream. More films should acknowledge that throwing money at a problem isn’t always the solution. To glean the amount of meaningful insight as Smallbone clearly demonstrates with this feature, placing himself in his father’s shoes to fully understand a psyche in the throes of turmoil, is quite the dynamic feat. That’s especially important for a faith-based audience who need to see that flaws in our design are what make us human.

Reviewed online, April 23, 2024. MPA Rating: PG. Running time: 112 MIN.

• Production: A Lionsgate release of a Kingdom Story Company, Candy Rock Entertainment production of a For King + Country Film. Producers: Joshua Walsh, Luke Smallbone, Justin Tolley, Joel Smallbone. Executive producers: Candace Cameron Bure, Andrew Erwin, Tony Young, Kevin Downes, Jon Erwin, Mike Curb, Brian Mitchell, Bill Reeves, Jeffery Brooks, Gerald Webb, Ford Englerth.
• Crew: Directors, writers: Joel Smallbone, Richard L. Ramsey. Camera: Johnny Derango. Editor: Parker Adams. Music: Brent McCorkle.
• With: Joel Smallbone, Daisy Betts, Kirrilee Berger, Jonathan Jackson, Lucas Black, Candace Cameron Bure, Terry O’Quinn, Paul Luke Bonenfant, Diesel La Torraca, JJ Pantano, Tenz McCall, Angus K. Caldwell.

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Boy Kills World review: "A gleefully bonkers blend of The Hunger Games and The Raid"

GamesRadar+ Verdict

Bill kills in a Sam Raimi production that’s probably best partnered with a non-anatomical six-pack.

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Do the Skarsgård brothers share the same trainer? You have to wonder given Bill Skarsgård’s shredded physique in Moritz Mohr’s gonzo actioner, a muscular morphosis to match his older sibling Alexander’s uber-ripped build in  The Northman . 

A gleefully bonkers blend of  The Hunger Games  and  The Raid  (one that features the latter’s martial arts maven Yayan Ruhian in a leading role), Boy Kills World centers on a deaf orphan on a one-man mission to avenge himself on the totalitarian regime he blames for offing his family. Skarsgård’s Boy lets his brawn do the talking – or he would, were his every move not accompanied by H. Jon Benjamin (of Bob’s Burgers fame) as an inner voice modeled on the narrator of Boy’s favorite childhood video game.

As that precis suggests, Boy Kills World is a film where anything pretty much goes. A live TV show where dissidents are executed by a breakfast cereal’s costumed mascots? Sure. Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery as a murderous enforcer? Hell, why not? Gory fight scenes utilizing everything from cheese graters to Gatling guns as weapons? Bring it on. And while we’re at it, let’s have a lip-reading gag involving a growling rebel (Isaiah Mustafa) whose every utterance Boy garbles into gibberish ('Dodo buns!').

OK, so there does come a point when the wackiness gets wearying. Yet it's hard to deny that Boy Kills World has a delirious, unhinged energy to it that’s not all that dissimilar to the John Wick franchise – a series Skarsgård exited, rather abruptly, at the end of its  fourth chapter .

Boy Kills World is in US theaters and UK cinemas on April 26. 

For more, check out our guides to all the other upcoming movies on the way in 2024 and beyond as well as the best action movies of all time.

Neil Smith is a freelance film critic who has written for several publications, including Total Film. His bylines can be found at the BBC, Film 4 Independent, Uncut Magazine, SFX Magazine, Heat Magazine, Popcorn, and more. 

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