It’s ironic that as the movie positioned to herald the return of major releases in theaters, Unhinged plays more like the kind of fare that’s gone straight to VOD in the last decade. Russell Crowe plays a role that Nicolas Cage or John Travolta might take on in one of those low-budget, low-profile thrillers, as an angry middle-aged man who goes on a killing spree following a traffic confrontation. Although Crowe’s nameless villain (listed only as "Man" in the closing credits) is already on a killing spree, really, since the movie opens with him murdering his ex-wife and her new partner/lover, and then setting their house on fire. Police are already searching for him when he’s stopped at a stop light in his giant pick-up truck in front of harried single mom Rachel (Caren Pistorius).

Late to drop off her son Kyle (Gabriel Bateman) at school, fired by her best hairdressing client and stuck in the middle of a nasty divorce, Rachel is having a really bad day, and she’s already spent far too much time stuck in traffic. So when the light turns green and that pick-up truck doesn’t move, Rachel honks her horn. Later, the man pulls up beside her and demands an apology, but she refuses to concede any wrongdoing. That’s all it takes for his demeanor to change, and he promises to show her the true meaning of having a bad day.

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The opening credits play over a montage of news reports about road rage, social media addiction and societal instability, and Crowe’s character spouts off talking points that sound like a post from a men’s rights activism message board (especially when he’s attacking Rachel’s best friend and divorce lawyer, played by Jimmi Simpson). But Unhinged isn’t really concerned with social commentary, either condemning or supporting the killer’s point of view, and comparisons to movies like Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down or the somewhat similar recent thriller Spree are overstated. Writer Carl Ellsworth’s screenplay is just about delivering maximum violence with minimal fuss, nothing more.

Ellsworth’s screenplay for the 2005 Wes Craven thriller Red Eye worked in exactly that manner, but Unhinged director Derrick Borte is no Wes Craven, and the set  -up here isn’t as clever or as skillfully executed. There’s some decent suspense during the movie’s handful of car chases -- although those sequences grow repetitive pretty quickly -- but the overall plot arc is completely predictable, and the man is just a violent brute force rather than a crafty or devious villain. There’s nothing connecting him to Rachel other than their chance encounter, and he’s not a threat on a psychological level, only as the equivalent of an escaped wild animal on a rampage.

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At one point, the man forces Rachel to choose which of her friends or loved ones he’ll kill next, but that kind of moral dilemma is quickly tossed aside in favor of direct attacks, and Rachel never experiences any doubts or conflicts about how to respond to this psychopath. The police are almost immediately on her side, even though the man commandeers her cell phone and briefly passes himself off as her friend, and like far too many victims in thrillers like this, Rachel makes plenty of questionable decisions that prolong the danger she’s in. The dialogue is full of clumsy bits of foreshadowing that eventually pay off only in the most obvious, expected ways.

Without a complex plot or surprising twists, Unhinged really just relies on Crowe’s performance, and he certainly throws himself into the role in the way that Cage or Travolta often do in movies that don’t warrant so much effort. Crowe is clearly relishing the opportunity to play full-on evil, and he gives the man a hulking presence and speaks in an intermittent Southern accent, although the movie is set in a deliberately anonymous location. With his bulky figure, thick beard and hunched-over posture, Crowe often looks like he’s recording a motion-capture performance as a particularly mean gorilla. He can be entertaining to watch, especially when he goes eagerly over the top, but there’s nothing for him to play against.

Pistorius is completely overshadowed by Crowe’s outsize performance, and Rachel is nearly as thinly developed a character as the man is. She loves her son and her brother, and she’s stressed out about work and her divorce. That’s all the background the movie provides, and Pistorius’ performance doesn’t add any extra dimensions to it.

So there’s not much catharsis to seeing either main character get taken down, and the eventual resolution is both completely ridiculous and boringly predictable. As a VOD or streaming time-waster, Unhinged would be barely passable, but as a risky outing to a movie theater, it’s not even worth considering.

Starring Russell Crowe, Caren Pistorius, Gabriel Bateman, Austin P. McKenzie and Jimmi Simpson, Unhinged opens Friday, Aug. 21 in theaters nationwide.

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