Movies - Unhinged – What you should know about the thriller of this summer

By Mulder, 13 june 2020

America’s movie theaters will show their first new film on July 1st, Unhinged, a thriller starring Academy Award-winner Russell Crowe. Academy Award winner Russell Crowe and Caren Pistorius take the wheel in the new trailer from Solstice Studios' Unhinged. The psychological thriller will be the first new film to open in America's movie theaters in accordance with state public health department safety guidelines on July 1st

Award winner Russell Crowe stars in Unhinged, a timely psychological thriller that explores the fragile balance of a society pushed to the edge, taking something we've all experienced- road rage - to an unpredictable and terrifying conclusion. Rachel (Caren Pistorius) is running late to work when she has an altercation at a traffic light with a stranger (Crowe) whose life has left him feeling powerless and invisible. Soon, Rachel finds herself and everyone she loves the target of a man who decides to make one last mark upon the world by teaching her a series of deadly lessons. What follows is a dangerous game of cat and mouse that proves you never know just how close you are to someone who is about to become unhinged.

Solstice Studios and Ingenious Media present a film by Derrick Borte, starring Russell Crowe, Caren Pistorius, Gabriel Bateman, Jimmi Simpson and Austin P. McKenzie. Casting is by Mary Vernieu, CSA & Raylin Sabo, CSA, with Music by David Buckley and Costume Design by Denise Wingate. The film was edited by Mike McCusker ACE, Steven Mirkovichm ACE and Tim Mirkovich ACE, with Production Design by Fredrick Waff and Cinematography by Brendan Galvin. Guy Botham, Crystal Bourbeau, Mary C. Russell, Christopher Milburn, Gareth West, Peter Touche and Anders Erden serve as Executive Producers. Unhinged is produced by Lisa Ellzey, Mark Gill and Andrew Gunn and written by Carl Ellsworth.

Unhinged is a cautionary tale where one encounter with a stranger sets off a chain of events with deadly consequences. The film focuses on an all too commonplace experience, road rage, and takes it to the most extreme, revealing one man's breaking point and challenging us in ways we never imagined. "Unhinged 'hinges' on a single moment- a chance encounter anyone of us could have at any moment," states Writer, Carl Ellsworth. Ellsworth is a huge fan of contained, psychological thrillers that are driven by a very relatable and terrifying "situation" that any of us, on any given day, could see ourselves facing. Having observed the escalation of road rage globally, he wondered why seemingly so many people were living their lives with so much pent-up anger. Ellsworth notes, "with Unhinged, I wanted to try to write the most intense thing I've ever written, with an unrelenting pace and urgency, that unfolds in real-time and doesn't let up until it's over. "

When Russell Crowe first read the script for Unhinged, his instinctive response was: "Absolutely not. I'm not doing this movie, it scares (the shit) out of me, this character is intensely dark... and when I heard that come out of my mouth, I was like, since when did I stop doing that? Cause that's basically what I look for. I look for the challenges.”

For Director, Derrick Borte, the premise of Unhinged was extremely relatable on a personal level: "It was one of those scripts that you can't put down until you get all the way through to see what happens next," he says. "As much as the plot centers on the road rage incident, the story is such a relatable exploration of the tentative threads that hold societies together, and the darker tendencies that lurk beneath the surface in many humans. We've all had what we would consider to be 'bad days,' and this story takes those impulses to the extreme."
"I immediately knew when I read the script that people would understand the idea and be able to relate to it," adds Producer, Lisa Ellzey. "These characters are so complex and interesting. While Russell's character is clearly the antagonist and brutal in his behavior, audiences can relate to aspects of each character during their first encounter, which is what hooks them in."

Tonally, Borte envisioned his main character, "The Man," (Crowe) as the shark from Jaws: lethal, unpredictable, stealth, and indelibly memorable. For that reason, the character is never named in the film. He is "The Man." A great force. "He is absolutely terrifying," agrees Crowe. "When he begins, he comes up from behind… we don't know where he is, then he gets closer and closer, strikes and disappears again until the next time. He is after his prey. Rachel just yells at the wrong guy on the wrong day. And he doesn't care about the consequences of his actions against her because he's already crossed the line."

When we meet "The Man," he has already reached rock bottom. He has lost his job, his wife, and he's also about to lose his house and is no longer capable of showing any level of compassion towards others. He's lost faith in everything he ever believed in and feels like everyone has failed him. From his perspective, he has nothing to lose.
Meanwhile, Rachel (Caren Pistorious) is experiencing a tough time herself. A single mother going through a divorce, which continues to affect her emotionally and financially, she has become the caregiver for her aging mother as well as for her younger brother and his girlfriend. However, instead of "bad guy" and "good guy" roles in this story, Pistorious believes these characters go deeper: "You don't have any idea what somebody else's world is. It would be so easy to judge ‘The Man’ and Rachel, but they both have, separately, had their worlds falling apart in different ways," she explains.

"I started to see how this film connects to where we are right now - in terms of the seeming inability of people from different perspectives to have a polite conversation," Crowe adds.

"When I found out he (Crowe) wanted to play the part, I couldn't imagine anyone else doing it. He's so good and he plays it with the raw intensity the character required," stated Ellzey, who believes "The Man" is Russell Crowe's most immersive and relatable role to date. "We've seen him do so many different kinds of parts, but to be kind of a homicidal maniac really shows his range. He's so ferocious. And yet at the same time, he's created this incredibly detailed and deep character underneath it," she states.

Ellzey goes on to say, "He's done a complete biopsy of this character and only he could have gone that deep and created a man that is understandable. You realize that all those things in his life piled up and then he snapped, but at the same time, he can't be black or white. He is menacing and unpredictable, like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, DeNiro in Cape Fear, and Michael Douglas in Falling Down – all great actors in some of their most memorable roles.”

"The Man" is a universal character. His anonymity speaks to many who feel "invisible" and disillusioned. Having had a recent series of personal failures, he's disconnected from society and has lost the capacity for lucid judgment. "The Man" feels like he doesn't measure up and people don't understand him. " [In Unhinged], 'The Man' is in this car on a hot day, somebody honks and he becomes unhinged, then there's really nothing that's going to stop him from being seen and heard,” states Ellzey.

Borte notes: "There are a lot of angry people in the world, especially now, and I think that road rage is just one of the symptoms of where we are as a society where people can't have disagreements and actually talk about them in some way that remains civil and productive."

Rachel, like "The Man", is just trying to keep it together as her world unravels, yet there is nothing she won't do to protect her son. Like "The Man,” she is a victim of circumstance, both characters meeting when they're at their most vulnerable and short-tempered. "I think anyone, any mother, could be in Rachel's shoes when she wakes up late in the morning and has to get her kid to school - she's running on empty and just trying to make ends meet. And then to find that there's another guy in a car next to you is having an even worse day?" Ellzey adds. It was very clear to Ellzey early on that Rachel absolutely had to commit "the sin" of not apologizing to "The Man." "To me it was an understandable and relatable choice – albeit not the most advisable one - arising from the snowball effect of all the cruddy events in her life culminating in her fateful run-in with 'The Man.' When he pushes her to apologize, it's simply the last straw- Rachel snaps and makes what turns out to be the worst decision of her life. A decision any one of us could make in similar circumstances."

For the role of Rachel, Borte looked through upwards of 60 actors, before finding Pistorius. "I knew she had that level of relatability, vulnerability, and believability that could connect to anyone in the audience. Caren won the day," Ellzey recalls. "There was just something about her that kind of lent into the combined vulnerability and strength needed for this role. When she left the room, he (Borte) turned around and just said, ‘It's her, right?’ And I agreed with him."

"The way Russell talks about her is also pretty incredible," Ellzey adds. "You can't put a camera in the wrong place on her face. She's just an absolutely classic beauty, and at the same time, she's super smart about the way she breaks down the character, the way she's come up with a character arc to make sure we don't have a woman who's terrified all the time. She's complicated. She's going through a whole bunch of emotions, whether it's protecting her son or being angry about what happened."

Jimmi Simpson was cast in the role of Andy, Rachel's best friend, confidante, and lawyer. Andy gives Rachel free legal advice as she goes through her divorce and is the one constant she can depend on - until he's swallowed up by the whirlpool of Rachel's road rage incident, becoming the sacrificial lamb for "The Man’s” mania. "When I first read the script, my initial thoughts were that it was a thrill ride and it was also certainly pertinent to the state of the nation in that people are losing their shit. I was interested right away, especially since the director and the cast were really impeccable," Simpson says.

When "The Man" threatens Rachel's son, Kyle (Gabriel Bateman), the cat and mouse game switches lanes, and Rachel will stop at nothing to save him, and this is where she finds her strength. In that, she also realizes she has not been the best role model or parent lately, which she vows to change. "Kyle has often been the adult, feeling a responsibility to take care of his mom. Kyle is scared in the moment but doesn't really understand how serious ‘The Man’ is. For him, it's kind of eye-opening to see the things that she does to protect him," explains Bateman.
Borte sums the social relevance of the film up nicely in saying, "While Unhinged is clearly a fictional story, it is thought-provoking and can open up a conversation of how we treat one another on the road, or elsewhere in life.” He goes on to say, “The mark of a successful film is one that sparks conversation about a particular subject. I think that's really what the best any film can do."

Synopsis :
A divorced single mother begins to be stalked and tormented by an unstable stranger following a road rage confrontation at a red light.

Unhinged
Directed by Derrick Borte
Produced by Lisa Ellzey, Mark Gill, Andrew Gunn
Written by Carl Ellsworth
Starring Russell Crowe, Caren Pistorius, Gabriel Bateman, Jimmi Simpson, Austin P. McKenzie
Music by David Buckley
Cinematography : Brendan Galvin
Edited by Michael McCusker, Steve Mirkovich, Tim Mirkovich
Production company : Solstice Studios, Ingenious Media
Distributed by Solstice Studios (United States), SND (France)
Release date : July 10, 2020 (United States), August 19, 2020 (France)
Running time : 91 minutes

(Source : production notes)