Unhinged
altitudeThere is an old Polish proverb “na bezrybiu i rak ryba”, which translates to “in a fishless pond a crayfish is a fish”. A keen reader will immediately pick up on the fact that the English language offers an alternative: “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”, as it logically refers to the idea of appreciating what one has in the absence of anything better. However, Derrick Borte’s Unhinged is not a bird in the hand. It is a crayfish in a fishless pond because there are no birds in the bush. The birds are in quarantine.
In a typical summer filled to the brim with high-profile Marvel releases and Blumhouse genre fare, a Russell Crowe-starring thriller about a psychopath in a pickup truck would go completely unnoticed and disappear from the screens with an abysmal box office take. But this summer is not typical. Owing to an unprecedented global health crisis, the 2020 summer blockbuster season was effectively cancelled. It became a barren wasteland. A fishless pond. Therefore, it is entirely likely that after months of government-mandated isolation, entertainment-starved filmgoers – who would normally turn their noses up at a schlocky thriller with a formulaic premise, an aging star and a relative newcomer behind the camera – could be persuaded to leave the safety of their households and venture back to the cinemas to see Unhinged because, at least until Christopher Nolan’s Tenet arrives, there is nothing else out there to choose from.
However, although Unhinged is a crayfish in a fishless pond of summer releases, it is well worth watching. It is a competently crafted, well-paced and suspenseful piece of entertainment some would easily dismiss as ‘old-fashioned’ and out of touch with the current zeitgeist of escapist entertainment, but it is simply tethered nostalgically to a different era. This seemingly forgettable B-movie about a road-raging sociopath is best understood as a melting pot of genre references ranging from Duel, Falling Down and The Fan, all the way up to such classics as Cape Fear and Halloween. With the right mind-set, one could even draw a parallel between this film and James Cameron’s The Terminator! As a result, Unhinged – perhaps incidentally so – benefits from genetically engineered familiarity spliced into its DNA. Even though it is occasionally marred by frankly preposterous and illogically convenient storytelling solutions, which could easily undermine the whole story, the film simply rolls along at a snappy pace and drags the viewer along, feet first, with their silent approval based on a subconscious feeling they might be exposed to something they are culturally conditioned to like.
This might be because the narrative of Unhinged is not predominantly driven by its plot, but rather by consecutive miniature set pieces bumping into one another much like domino pieces relaying the energy applied by the finger pushing the first piece and instigating the chain reaction. In this case, the role of the finger is played by the inciting incident in which a woman (Caren Pistorius) leans on the horn when a car driven by Russell Crowe’s character, The Man, in front of her fails to respond to changing traffic lights. He imprints upon her the way Michael Myers imprints on Laurie Strode in John Carpenter’s classic slasher and the dominos start falling. In fact, any logic or common sense can be safely disposed of at that moment, because the film is henceforth carried by the fundamental laws of conservation of energy. The story gleefully hops between car chases and violent confrontations without ever considering giving the audience some room to breathe. Thus, these mini set pieces effectively merge into one massive elaborate sequence that begins with Russell Crowe’s character patronizingly educating Caren Pistorius’s Rachel what a courtesy honk is and ends with a predictably exhilarating final showdown. Only then is the viewer’s adrenaline level allowed to drop: when the genre rollercoaster is over and the screen cuts to black.
Without a shadow of a doubt, Unhinged ticks all the boxes of a forgettable genre movie destined to rot in the darkest recesses of the Netflix library and the circumstances of its cinematic release may play a crucial part in how it is received. Nevertheless, warts and all, it is a surprisingly solid thriller that plays to its strengths, doesn’t overstay its welcome and, most importantly, navigates its own pool of inspirations with a mixture of honest respect and cavalier flippancy. To be completely frank, if Tony Scott was alive today, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect him to be the one helming this project. In fact, between its relentless pace, a narrative tone balancing the earnest with the ludicrous and even the characteristic colour palette, the production of Unhinged – a cinematic crayfish in a fishless pond of summer blockbusters – may have been ghost-directed (sic!) by Tony Scott’s spirit after all.
