UNHINGED : Tuesday 4th August 2020.

'UNHINGED' which I saw at my local multiplex earlier this week is an MA15+ Rated American psychological thriller film Directed by Derrick Borte, whose previous film making credits take in 2009's 'The Joneses', 2013's 'Dark Around the Stars', 2015's 'H8RZ', 2016's 'London Town' and 2019's 'American Dreamer'. Costing US$33M to make, the film has had its cinematic release date pushed back and brought forward several times in the hope of being amongst the first to test the waters as cinemas reopen. The film opened in Europe, Latin America and Asia mid last month, in Australia last week and is slated for its US release sometime in August, has so far grossed US$1.6M and has generated mixed Reviews.

The film opens with a lone man, later going by the name of Tom Cooper (Russell Crowe), sitting in his pick-up truck late at night in the pouring rain. He's popping pills, and playing with matches with an intensely angered look on his dial. He gets out of his car, takes off his jacket, folds it neatly and places it on the passenger seat. He then goes to the back seat and pulls out a can of petrol and a hammer. Walking up to the front door of a house with a recently listed for sale sign out the front, he smashes the front door in with said hammer. A man comes running out wondering what all the commotion is about followed by a woman. The pair are quickly bludgeoned to death with the hammer and the house then set alight. Driving away from the scene the house explodes in a ball of flame, as the rain drenched man sits behind the wheel expressionless.

Later that morning we are introduced to Rachel Hunter (Caren Pistorius), sleeping on the couch when her phone rings, waking her up late. It is Andy (Jimmi Simpson) on the other end of the line, her friend and divorce lawyer, saying that her soon to be ex-husband Richard, has filed a claim for the former matrimonial home. Andy says that he has already drafted a response rejecting the claim considering that Rachel paid for it, while her husband bummed from one job to the next. She says she'll think about it, they agree to meet up for lunch, and Rachel hangs up, saying that she needs to get her son Kyle (Gabriel Bateman) to school and they're already running late. On the drive to school, the traffic is at its usual peak hour standstill. They take the freeway but this is jammed tight. Rachel takes the hard shoulder and turns off at the next exit. She comes to halt at a red stop light behind a pick-up truck. The light turns green, but the truck in front doesn't move. She honks the car horn repeatedly trying to get the driver in front to move before the light turns red again. Out of frustration, she manoeuvres her beat up old Volvo station wagon around the pick-up truck just as the lights turn red, and she's clear, leaving the truck still standing. At the next stop, the pick-up truck pulls up beside her.

The man driving the pick-up truck is the same guy who killed and torched the couple's home earlier that night. He calmly winds his window down and motions to Kyle to do the same. Very matter of factly he tells Rachel that instead of repeatedly honking her car horn at him she should have given him a 'courtesy tap' - a couple of polite and quick beeps. After all he had just 'zoned out' for a minute or two, and besides he's having a very bad day. He apologises for keeping her waiting at the red stop light, and demands an apology from Rachel, so they can then both go about their business. Rachel refuses point blank to say sorry, despite the wishes to do so from Kyle in the back seat.

When the cars move off, Cooper chases Rachel and Kyle bumper to bumper down tight city streets, eventually evading the man, and dropping Kyle off at school. When alone, Rachel calls Andy and explains that she's just had a nightmare road rage experience, she was just fired by her best client for being late (again!), and Kyle will get a thirty minute detention for arriving late at school. Can they do breakfast instead of lunch? Andy agrees, and sends Rachel a diary insert to meet at their favourite diner for breakfast in half an hour or so. Rachel needs to refuel her Volvo, and pulls up at a petrol station. Having paid, she notices Cooper parked up directly behind her at the fuel pump. She doesn't know what to do. The attendant offers to call the Police, but Rachel declines. Another male customer offers to walk Rachel out to her car, and take Copper's license plate number. When Rachel is back in her vehicle and drives off, the kindly customer motions to Cooper to just leave her alone, and that they have noted his licence plate number. At this Cooper revs the engine and drives headlong at the guy at speed lifting him up onto the bonnet of his truck, before turning sharply in pursuit of Rachel once again. As the guy is thrown off the bonnet into the road, he staggers to get up only to be killed outright by a passing delivery truck. Rachel witnesses this in her rear view mirror.

In the meantime, while at the fuel stop, Cooper has stolen Rachel's mobile phone from her car, and replaced it with another which he locates in the centre console out of view. After giving chase upon exiting the petrol station, Cooper catches up with Rachel and motions through his window that he is now in possession of her phone. She successfully evades him again and brings her car to a stop under an overpass. She hears a phone ringing and rummaging around inside her Volvo she locates it in the centre console. By this time Cooper has caught up with Andy at their designated breakfast meeting time and place and introduced himself to the divorce lawyer as an old friend of Rachel's from out of town. Andy had tried unsuccessfully to reach Rachel not knowing that she was no longer in possession of her phone, or the reasons why. Needless to say, it doesn't end well for Andy particularly as he is a divorce lawyer and Cooper has gone through the very things that Andy is advocating for Rachel in her divorce from Richard, which only serves to piss off Cooper even more. At about 10:00am in a packed out diner Andy meets with a brutal end. All the while other diners look on in horror, with many filming the whole episode on their mobile phones, which is beamed across TV screens within the hour.

While this is going on, Rachel is on the phone with Cooper pleading with him to stop, but Cooper has no intention of stopping. As he walks out of the diner, he tells her that Andy is dead. Still driving and in disbelief Cooper calls Rachel and says that he has checked out her photos, her contacts, her voicemail messages on her phone. He transfers her life savings to Richard's bank account with a few clicks on the screen, and asks Rachel to choose who his next victim should be from her contacts list, otherwise he will choose someone else very close to her. She gives the name of Deborah Haskell (Anne Leighton) who was the valued client who fired Rachel earlier that morning. Needless to say, Rachel calls the Police to alert Haskell, but Cooper is calling her bluff!

Instead Cooper tells Rachel to collect Kyle from school and to call him back when he is in the car with her. In the meantime he drives to her house to find Kyle's uncle Fred (Austin P. Mackenzie) and his girlfriend Mary (Juliene Joyner). Cooper savagely beats up Mary, and as Fred tries to defend himself and Mary with a kitchen knife, Cooper thrusts Mary onto the blade being held out by Fred repeatedly. With Mary dead, Kyle is gaffer taped to a chair and has lighter fuel doused over him. At this point Rachel calls and is put on loud speaker so that Kyle can hear too. Fred, by now also badly beaten, reads out a letter, sobbing uncontrollably, dictated to him by Cooper as though it is from Fred's own hand, saying that Rachel is responsible for their deaths. At this point a Police officer charges in and fires off a round catching Cooper in the shoulder. He ignites the lighter fuel doused on Fred and pushes the chair in the direction of the Officer so that he can make his getaway. All the while Rachel and Kyle are listening in, distraught.

Back on the freeway, and Cooper has swapped vehicles and is now driving a people mover belonging to a neighbour of Rachel's. Back in the Volvo, Rachel and Kyle come to the conclusion that Cooper must be tracking them using Rachel's phone synched to her tablet which must be somewhere in the car. Rummaging about Kyle locates it switched on and taped to the underside of the passenger seat and out of view. Before you know it, Cooper is upon them once again. The Volvo accelerates ahead of Cooper's and pulls up alongside a Police car. The pair motion to the Officer to wind down his window and shout across that they are being pursued by the guy who has been all over the news earlier that day. Cooper nudges the Police car from behind sending it spinning across several lanes coming to rest against the flow of traffic. About to call it in, the Police car is taken out by a truck trashing the Police vehicle and its occupant instantly. Rachel hatches a plan to drive to her mothers house in the suburbs which has a maze of corridors and secret hideaways that Kyle can stow himself away in safely. Following another high speed chase to get to her mothers place, Rachel loses Cooper in the side streets, and with the tablet now out of juice, Cooper is unable to track the Volvo. He drives around until he spies the parked Volvo. While Cooper is preparing to get out of the vehicle Rachel T-Bones his car with her mother's vehicle, sending it toppling onto its roof. Getting out armed with a golf club, she goes around to the drivers side door to find it open and empty, whereupon Cooper emerges and beats her up leaving her semi-conscious on the ground. Cooper goes into the house in search of Kyle.

The house is all silent as Cooper makes out he is a Police officer and says it's safe to come out in a friendly welcoming tone of voice. Upstairs in a concealed attic space, Kyle is uncertain what to do. He jangles against a fire side setting sending the tools crashing, which alerts Cooper to his whereabouts, but Rachel gets to Kyle first. Thinking they are safe, Rachel is dragged backwards by Cooper into a bedroom and punched repeatedly in the face. He then grabs Kyle and drags him into the room punching him too, and wraps an electrical cord around his neck. As Kyle gasps for breath, Rachel jumps up from the bed wielding a pair of scissors that ultimately sees an end to Cooper. As the Police arrive, they advise the pair that Fred is going to be OK, and as they have made their statements they are free to go.

Tom Cooper is a nasty piece of work. He's got such a big chip on his shoulder it's a wonder he can walk straight, and he really takes road rage to the next level. But for all his anger management issues, his brutality and his malevolence there is something about him that makes for compulsive viewing. Perhaps it is because he is just so over the top unhinged and grounded in some sense of reality that makes this story as compelling as it is. After all, we see and hear almost every day either on the news channels or via social media platforms examples of real life road rage incidents that often leave the viewer dumbfounded and exasperated - but almost never on the level seen in this feature. But I guess the carnage, the brutal acts of violence which leave nothing to the imagination, the pure evil in Tom Cooper's motivations and the game of cat and mouse that ensues all add up to a package that is well crafted but lacks any reason to be, or message, and you just know that in the end the cat will get his comeuppance and the mouse will overcome.

'Unhinged' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-