Unhinged (2020 film)

Unhinged is a 2020 American action thriller film  directed by Derrick Borte, from a screenplay by Carl Ellsworth. The film stars Russell Crowe, Caren Pistorius, Gabriel Bateman, Jimmi Simpson and Austin P. McKenzie. It tells the story of a woman who, while on her way to drop her son off at school, is fired by a client over the phone in rush hour traffic, but is then terrorized by a violent and vengeance-obsessed stranger, following a hostile verbal altercation with him at a traffic light. This leads to the rest of the day involving the stranger targeting the woman's family and friends as revenge.

Unhinged was theatrically released by Solstice Studios in Germany on July 16, 2020, and in the United States on August 21, 2020. The film was notable for being the first wide theatrical release in several months, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and grossed $44 million worldwide. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised Crowe's performance, but felt that the film did not take full advantage of its thrilling premise.

Plot
On a rainy night, a man named Tom Cooper sits in a pickup truck outside of his ex-wife's house. He removes his wedding ring, then grabs a hammer and a tank of gas. He proceeds to break into the house, kill his ex-wife and her boyfriend, and sets the house on fire before driving off, as the house explodes from behind, though Tom remains expressionless.

The following morning, Rachel Flynn is awakened by a call from her lawyer and best friend, Andy, about her impending divorce. Later as she drives her son Kyle to school in rush hour traffic, she is fired by one of her clients over the phone. Frustrated with the "rough lane" that her life has taken, she angrily honks at a pickup truck blocking traffic at a green light, revealed Tom to be behind the wheel. At the next red light, the pickup truck slowly pulls up to Rachel's car and signals for her son Kyle to roll down the window to speak to him. Tom asks him if he knows what a "courtesy tap" is, before apologizing for not driving off at the previous light and Tom admits to having been going through a bad time himself, before asking Rachel for a friendly apology in return to "hit reset" and lay the whole situation to rest. Rachel angrily refuses, before she becomes unnecessarily hostile and she tells Tom that she has "nothing to apologize for". This results in Tom losing his composure and he proceeds to become hostile and even antagonistic, as he begins to rant and shout about how "people don't know how to apologize for anything", apparently suggesting that the "perfect" crowd always blame those who aren't as "highly valued" as they are for the most minor of inconveniences possible, so that they can keep their "perfect" title in their lives, or in other words, they innocently continue to step on people's heads just because they can, so they feel that they should. Tom then vows to teach Rachel what "a bad day is", before he drives away. Down the road, Tom suddenly speeds in front of Rachel, slams on his brakes, and nearly causes an accident as he stops while turned vertically along the street, right in front of Rachel's car, staring at Rachel and Kyle with vengeful intentions for them both, smiling and finally driving off. Shaken by this, Rachel drops Kyle off at school and makes plans to meet Andy at a diner.

Rachel later stops at a gas station. While inside the store, she sees that Tom's truck is parked outside directly behind her own. A fellow customer escorts Rachel back to her car and relays Tom's license plate number to her, before Rachel drives off. The customer tells Tom that he made "a good choice" by staying put and not following Rachel. But, he is suddenly rammed by Tom, who seems not to even really notice the customer, and he is propelled into oncoming traffic, seemingly killing him. Tom then chases Rachel through town, during which, he reveals that he has her phone. Using the contact list on it, Tom goes to the diner and meets with Andy, pretending to be "a friend" to Rachel. Using Andy's phone, Tom calls Rachel on his burner phone that he had stashed in her car. When Andy asks for his phone back, noticing Tom's menacing behavior right when he begins talking to Rachel, Tom instantly smashes a mug across Andy's face and stabs him to death with a mug shard in front of everyone. Before he finishes Andy off, Tom asks who Andy is to Rachel, as Tom relays that he might be a divorce lawyer who "screws good, hard-working" people like him over, indicating that Tom's own divorce lawyer had betrayed him and got a judge to rule in Tom's now deceased ex-wife's favor, though she cheated on Tom with another man. Tom then tells Rachel that she must choose someone in her contacts to die next. When she tries apologizing, but it's not to make things right, but instead, it's to prevent Tom's rampage from going further for the sake of her friends and family. But, Tom can tell that she isn't being sincere. He suggests Rachel's ex-husband, her mother, or Kyle to die next, but Rachel instead chooses the client who had previously fired her. Rachel then calls the police after hanging up with Tom, who respond to the client's home before Tom has a chance to, while Rachel races to her son's school to get him, out of fear that Tom will target him.

Tom arrives at Rachel's home, where her brother Fred and his fiancée Mary are living. Tom sneaks inside, indicated by Fred hearing glass from a nearby window shatter, so he arms himself with a knife in case of an altercation. Tom suddenly confronts Fred from behind, after Fred sees Tom's truck parked outside through the broken window. Tom holds Mary hostage, and upon confronting Fred, Tom explains that over time, he had begun to feel insignificant, powerless and invisible to humanity, thanks to being betrayed by everyone that he has ever known, loved or trusted. From his ex-wife cheating on him with another man, to his own divorce lawyer giving her everything and leaving Tom empty handed, Tom says that revenge and violence are all that he feels to have left to get him through the day. This indicates just how insane that Tom has also become as a result of losing his emotional filter. Tom then repeatedly proceeds to push Mary into Fred's knife, killing her. He accuses Fred of killing her, though Fred was the one holding the knife in self-defense, before Tom ties Fred to a chair and calls Rachel. Over the phone, he explains that she has three minutes to go into the school, get Kyle, and drive away with him, or he will light Fred on fire, while demanding Fred to read a letter about how Rachel is a liar and how she is selfish. At the school, Rachel desperately demands that the principal release Kyle. She drives away with him just as Tom demanded her to, before a police officer arrives at Rachel’s house, possibly thanks to him tracking down the license plate of Tom's truck from the diner incident earlier. After being told to let Fred go, Tom sets him on fire anyway, before pushing him to the cop, who is able to shoot a running Tom in the shoulder and tries to put the fire out to save Fred. Tom later catches up to Rachel and Kyle on a highway. They use a GPS app on her tablet to find out that Tom is in a minivan and is right in front of them. When they attempt to alert a nearby police officer, Tom sees them and rams the officer's car, causing a massive multi-vehicle car accident that kills the officer.

Tom pursues Rachel to her mother's house where Kyle triggers a silent alarm to signal the cops and he hides. Rachel secretly gets into another car and rams the van that Tom is driving, flipping the vehicle. But, he gets out and attacks Rachel from behind, telling her that she will always see Tom everywhere she goes, before entering the house in search of Kyle, intent on killing him last. As he is about to walk back outside upon getting no response, as Tom pretends to be a cop, Kyle inadvertently alerts Tom to his hiding place upstairs. Rachel had snuck inside the house and finds Kyle first, but Tom instantly finds them both and Rachel engages in a brutal fight with Tom, as they both beat, punch and throw each other all over the room. When Tom gains the upper hand and begins to strangle Kyle with a lamp cord, Rachel is able to stab Tom in the eyeball with a pair of scissors that she had stashed in her pocket earlier, as she shouts to Tom that this is his "courtesy tap", before stomping the scissors deeper into Tom's skull, killing him.

The police arrive and inform Rachel that Fred had managed to have survived Tom's attack. Rachel and Kyle then leave to see Fred at the hospital. As they drive away, a car cuts Rachel off and she stops herself from honking at the angry driver. Kyle says, "good choice", as they proceed to drive away as the sun sets.

Production
Principal photography took place in the summer of 2019 in Kenner and New Orleans, Louisiana. Production was completed in September 2019.

Release
Unhinged was originally scheduled to be released on August 28, 2020, before being pushed back to September 4. In May 2020, its release was moved up to July 1, 2020, in order to "likely be the first to test the waters as theaters try to rebound" from the COVID-19 pandemic. The date was later pushed back to July 10, then July 31, and, on July 23, the film was again delayed, this time to August 21, 2020.

The film began a premium video on demand release on October 20, 61 days after opening in theaters. Normally if distributors put a film on VOD before the 75-day window, theaters will stop showing it; however, given the pandemic, exhibitors feel it "remains a welcome addition to a limited release schedule".

The film began an international release on July 16 in Germany, and then on July 31 in the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, Asia, and Latin America. The film was released in Ecuador on August 6, and by VVS Films in Canada on August 14, 2020.

Home media
Unhinged was released on 4K Blu-ray in Germany on November 27, 2020 and on Blu-ray and DVD in the United Kingdom on November 23, 2020.

Box office
Unhinged grossed $20.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $23.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $44.3 million.

In its opening weekend in Canada, the film made $601,032 from 299 theaters. Playing in both the United States and Canada the following weekend, the film grossed $1.4 million from 1,823 theaters on its first day, and went on to debut to $4 million over the weekend; 71% of the audience was over the age of 25, with 56% being male. It was the first film with a weekend gross of over $1 million since Onward in March, and despite theater chains reopening some locations the top-five grossing venues were all drive-ins. Deadline Hollywood noted the increase of ticket sales from Friday to Saturday was likely an indication of audience interest moving forward, while The Hollywood Reporter called the film's debut a win, and said studio executives were "pleased by the results." Playing in 2,331 theaters the following weekend, the film made $2.8 million (a drop of 35%), finishing second behind newcomer The New Mutants. In its third, fourth, fifth weekends of release in the U.S. the film made $1.7 million, $1.5 million, and $1.3 million, respectively, with drive-in theaters remaining its top venues.

Unhinged grossed $251,849 from 380 theaters in its German debut, slightly below expectations but finishing in first place. In its second weekend the film made $201,655 from 438 theaters for a 12-day total in the country of $530,572. In the film's United Kingdom debut, it grossed $230,000 (£174,901) from 250 theaters, becoming the first film to make over £100,000 in the country since the re-opening. By its third week of release, beginning August 7, Unhinged was the top film in six of about 50 countries, and had a running international gross of $5.41 million. Its top markets at the time were Australia ($1.24 million total gross), Germany ($877,000), the Netherlands ($597,000), the United Kingdom ($575,000), New Zealand ($193,000), and Russia ($124,000). It continued to hold the top spot in the UK and Australia the following weekend, with a global running total of $7.7 million.

Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Unhinged holds an approval rating of based on  reviews, with an average score of. The website's critics consensus reads, "Russell Crowe makes for a compulsively watchable villain, but Unhinged lacks enough intelligence or depth to get sufficient mileage out of its pulpy premise." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 40 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Guy Lodge of Variety said the film "delivers exactly the nasty B-movie thrills you expect," and wrote, "The carnage is the point here, not any of the reasoning behind it, and Borte and Crowe bring it to a suitably frothing, furious head." Writing for CTV News, Richard Crouse gave the film two stars and specified, "Unhinged distinguishes itself by keeping the pedal to the metal without providing anything new in the way of thrills. 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."

Writing for IndieWire, Kaleem Aftab gave the film a "D" and said, "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."