Quentin Tarantino’s favorite thriller of 2020 is now on Netflix
Despite being one of only two films Quentin Tarantino said he would have paid to see it in theaters during the pandemic, Unhinged feels like a movie perfectly conceived for a great evening on Netflix. It’s a thriller that’s both terrifying and silly, featuring a movie star in a great performance as a loose-gun killer, and running at just 81 minutes (before the credits), it knows exactly how not to overstay its welcome. So now that it’s actually on Netflix, now’s the perfect time to watch it.
The film follows Rachel (Caren Pistorius), a young mother going through a divorce, living with her burned-out brother and his fiancée and trying to keep her life on track. On a rushed morning (which we learn is the norm for Rachel), while trying to get her son to school (late) and getting fired (for being late), she gives in to a satisfying fit of rage on the road and sounds the horn because the driver of the pickup in front of her doesn’t want to go despite the fact that the light is clearly green. The only problem for Rachel, her son, and everyone she’s ever met is that the driver of that truck (Russell Crowe) was just driving back from murdering his ex-wife and her new husband, and decides that the rude driver behind him leaves. to be his next victim.
The character Rachel is part of Unhinged‘s particularly fun secret sauce. A lesser film might have given in to the temptation to make Rachel feel fairly anonymous, to help the audience relate to her, or even to make her a perfect angel for the audience to root for as she is hunted by Crowe’s demon in a pickup truck. But Unhinged does something smarter than that: it makes Rachel an absolute mess. She makes so many mistakes in the first ten minutes, either through rudeness or carelessness, that it’s no surprise that something terrible has happened. She’s like everyone’s worst habit or worst day rolled into one person, in a way that you can’t help but relate to and cringe at the same time. All of this over-the-top characterization also provides the perfect justification for the moment when Rachel begins making a series of incredibly bad choices as she tries to escape her torment, something few thrillers like this build in from the start. And of course, it all fits perfectly with the fact that everyone watching knows that no amount of mistake or vague selfish unkindness could justify the horror the driver decides to unleash.
But for all the fun to be had from the absolute disaster that is Rachel, it’s Crowe who is the real star of the show here. In his hands, driver Tom Cooper is downright terrifying, a cross between an identifiable person you might shy away from in Home Depot and a slasher villain who would feel at home in Haddonfield. Crowe plays a seething rage as well as anyone in Hollywood, and his movie star charm is brilliantly displaced in this killer who has decided to make his terrible day everyone’s problem.
However, all of that is reasonably expected from a mid-career Russell Crowe performance. What might not be expected is how physically imposing Crowe becomes here. It is rare that he can use his entire frame (outside the film footage) in a film. The nice guyswho uses this brilliantly), but director Derrick Borte lets Crowe be his enormous, threatening self here. When he finally catches up to Rachel and the two get into a scuffle, Crowe bounces her off walls with ease, making this film’s real threats palpably clear in the real world.
And that brings us back to the alchemy that makes Unhinged great: it combines these moments of relatability and genuine fear with enough high-speed minivan chases and unexpectedly huge car crashes to effortlessly bounce between terror and weirdness, making it a perfect movie to binge on Netflix on a weekend at home. Make sure you watch it on a day when you haven’t honked at anyone yet.
Unhinged is now streaming on Netflix.