THE ROAD TO HELL
Russell Crowe is on fine form as a frustrated motorist who blows a gasket in spectacular fashion with another driver
RUSSELL CROWE rampages back into cinemas in this brutal road rage thriller which courts controversy by offering sympathy for his maniac character who drives the action. The Oscar-winning star of Gladiator is one of my favourite actors and he delivers a double-barrelled performance as Tom, a regular guy who’s suffering a breakdown of the nervous variety.
He begins a campaign of terror against a fellow motorist who impatiently beeps at him on the school run and then refuses to apologise when Tom asks her to. This sly attempt at victim-blaming by the script is a tactic to lure us into a moral trap by encouraging us to sympathise with Tom, a self-pitying brute, and the manifestation of the frothing anger of a certain type of disenfranchised middleaged blue collar bloke.
The relatively unknown actress Caren
Pistorius is equally terrific as the single mother subjected to Tom’s violent fury and she’s given a brilliantly funny killer line which will probably define her career.
The moral waters are further muddied by her realistic flaws such as using her phone while she drives, while Tom uses smartphone tech to target her family and friends en route to kidnap, arson and some serious vehicle damage.
With a career-long appetite for meaty roles which allow him to chew the scenery, Crowe now appears to be twice
the man he used to be, and his enormous bulk provides a Terminator-like imperviousness during Tom’s remorseless pursuit.
Tom proves such a relentless and magnificent monster that this movie almost qualifies as a horror film, and it can be parked alongside Joel Schumacher’s 1993 classic Falling Down, starring Michael Douglas, for its mix of topical social commentary and popcorn thrills.
Unhinged made for a great re-introduction to cinema on my first trip since lockdown and as part of a safe and socially distanced audience it was brilliant to again experience the unique excitement of watching films on the big screen.
Tom proves such a relentless and magnificent monster that this movie almost qualifies as a horror film...