While the subgenre isn’t precision-engineered to appeal to critics, audiences have always been willing to check out a B-tier thriller with a straightforward premise that promises thrills, chills, and the occasional burst of explosive action. On those three fronts, Derrick Borte’s Unhinged delivers and then some.
The movie will always hold a unique place in cinematic history as the first major Hollywood title to score a wide theatrical release for months after the first wave of COVID-19 brought the industry to a standstill, and it performed admirably by the standards of the time after earning $44 million a $33 million budget.
As expected, critics weren’t sold on the derivative, formulaic, and routine nature of the plot, but Unhinged‘s 48% Rotten Tomatoes score is considerably offset by a 77% user rating. The narrative is unabashedly simple A-to-B stuff, but the entire thing is elevated significantly by a gung-ho Russell Crowe performance, one that just about straddles the line between broad menace and outright scenery-chewing.
Caren Pistorius makes the mistake of honking her horn at Crowe’s pickup truck during rush hour traffic, blissfully unaware he’s recently killed his ex-wife and her new partner, before burning their house to the ground. Naturally, he doesn’t take too kindly to being spoken down to, making it his mission for the rest of the day to hunt her down and exact retribution.
Unhinged may be ridiculous, far-fetched, and occasionally very stupid, but it delivers 93 minutes of non-stop entertainment nonetheless. As per FlixPatrol, plenty of Amazon and iTunes subscribers have been spending their time watching Crowe go for broke, with the pulp favorite scoring a Top 10 finish on both platforms this weekend.
