It’s quite fair for Ryan Scott of MovieWeb to question whether or not Unhinged could possibly beat out Tenet as the movie that will have people wanting to sit in a crowded theater come July 1st and experience something that’s all too real, but given how long it’s already been and how truly antsy people are getting, there are a lot of movies that could beat out Tenet so long as they’re allowing people back into the theaters. Obviously procedures are going to be a lot different when heading into the theater and if you have a fever it’s likely won’t get in to start with, but Unhinged is already looking like the type of movie that will have people talking for a while after since it centers around a subject that’s all too real and can in fact happen to just about anyone. When a mother is running late for work and decides to lay on her horn behind another driver in traffic she starts a chain reaction that she had no idea would come about as the man, who is described as someone that’s feeling powerless and invisible due to circumstances beyond his control, decides to fight back and show the true meaning of a ‘bad day’ things appear to go off the rails in a big hurry as he actively turns her life upside down and reminds her that things can always get so much worse than what anyone might anticipate.
The sound of Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box” delivers an especially heavy punch to the trailer that invokes the seriousness and the madness that’s going to be unleashed in less than two months time, as Russel Crowe is already looking like an absolute madman intent on teaching a lesson. One can definitely expect this movie to generate some discussion if only because in a way it almost looks like we’re going to be talking about road rage, toxic masculinity, perhaps even patriarchy in some respects, and that the woman in the movie might be cast in a sympathetic light since Russell’s character is already seen to be going off the chain as he attempts to show her just how bad a day can really get. Seeing the lead actress in the heroic role is almost a given at one point but seeing her as the unwitting victim to begin with might be what some people see, though if you’re paying close enough attention you’ll notice that she’s not quite innocent enough in her manner to really pull off the innocent act considering that despite her own bad attitude she unknowingly provoked a guy that was bound to snap at one point or another. Marianne Garvey of CNN has more to say about the movie.
The conversations to come are going to be interesting no doubt since for years now road rage has been a very real thing, and the fact that someone can flip out like this might not be an everyday occurrence, but it’s a reality that a lot of people don’t necessarily wake up to until it’s too late. Making a movie out of it is bound to gain some type of criticism and plenty of comments that will come about and create some form of conflict, but all in all people are going to decide just which side they fall on, the road rager or the mom with the attitude, since in the end one can assume that the mom is going to end up looking like a tragic heroine while the guy she provoked will be seen as the unstable psychopath that was just looking for someone to trigger him. The hope in this case though is that by the end of the movie the mom will turn out to be the person that’s learned a lesson about tempering her own attitude, especially when the individual she decided to anger is apparently willing to give her another chance to apologize and just let things go. I can already imagine on social media how many different ways such an idea would be taken, and one can easily grasp how many people would paint the mom as the victim and the aggressive individual as the villain, but we’ll have to wait a little longer to see how things really turn out. Michael Fleming Jr. of Deadline has his own opinion on how things are going to turn out.
So far though, Unhinged does look like a movie that will get people into the seats, partially because it looks like an interesting movie and partially because people simply want to get out of the house and go to the movies once again. It might be a while for some people since it doesn’t sound as though movie theaters are reopening nationwide, but even when they do it’s fair to assume that things are going to be very different and the practices of the theaters are going to have to be altered in a big way.
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