Unhinged
Solstice Studios | Release Date: August 21, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
40
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
18
Negative:
12
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyAug 3, 2020
As a psychothriller, it gives itself one simple assignment – to set your heart rate pounding through the roof. And on this level, with a lurid voltage that might require health warnings, it nastily delivers. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansAug 1, 2020
This zippy car chase thriller shares some DNA with Joel Schumacher’s 1993 black comedy Falling Down . . . . Both are darkly funny studies and send-ups of emasculated men, with Crowe’s character claiming to have been “dismissed as the unworthiest fuck to ever walk the planet”. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiAug 21, 2020
As the horror genre has, in recent years, grown more sophisticated and clever, you heave a sigh of relief to be handed a thriller that’s so dumb. Read full review
75
ConsequenceBlake GobleAug 20, 2020
Crass but quick, and agreeably popcorn-y, Unhinged could have gone off in far more risible fashion. Not quite a gas, but without crashing and burning entirely, Unhinged gets where it needs to go and fast. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerAug 19, 2020
All in all, it's a bleak lesson in civility: don't honk your horn, because you just never know who you're honking at. Read full review
67
Original-CinThom ErnstAug 13, 2020
Crowe, identified in the credits only as The Man, is the reason to see this film. He makes for a convincing villain. And even when the movie veers towards the ridiculous, Crowe forces you to keep your eyes on the road. Read full review
60
IGNJim VejvodaAug 20, 2020
With any other actor as the menacing lead, Unhinged would have been a TV movie or straight-to-streaming release, but Crowe and a few well-executed scenes of action still manage to hold the viewer’s interest throughout what’s essentially 90 minutes of genre filler material. Read full review
60
Time OutPhil de SemlyenAug 3, 2020
Crowe’s satisfyingly nasty turn deserves a bit more brains to go with the brawn. Read full review
60
Total FilmMatthew LeylandJul 31, 2020
“I’m always going to be inside your head,” growls Crowe. Maybe not, but this fast, brutal chase-fest is trashy fun while it lasts. Read full review
60
EmpireChristina NewlandJul 31, 2020
In spite of what may seem like a direct-to-VOD vibe, this is a slick, nasty thriller with a throwback quality, neither too self-serious nor too self-aware. While it’s not especially fresh, it’s still solid genre filmmaking. Read full review
58
Vanity FairRichard LawsonAug 20, 2020
Unhinged is a nasty piece of work, jarringly rough but also, in fits and starts, bracing entertainment. Read full review
50
UproxxVince ManciniAug 20, 2020
Oddly, the most compelling part of Unhinged is seeing just how much mayhem director Derrick Borte and writer Carl Ellsworth can squeeze out of this most mundane of premises. Read full review
50
Screen RantSandy SchaeferAug 20, 2020
Between its concise action and Crowe's scenery-chewing, Unhinged makes for an amusingly trashy B-movie, even if its social commentary never congeals. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleBob StraussAug 19, 2020
It’s a simple, sick, ridiculous story told with relentless tension and forward thrust. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 18, 2020
Russell Crowe is an A-list star in a B-movie, but to his credit it never feels as if he’s slumming it. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 18, 2020
In the sadistic yet middling road-rage thriller Unhinged, Crowe literally steers the vehicle delivering the big box of acting, over- and under-. While there’s barely a movie there, a year from now, when the multiplexes of the world will either largely be back, be gone or be something in between, we’ll have forgotten Unhinged. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 18, 2020
It’s the best showcase Russell Crowe‘s had in forever. Sure, it’s a B-picture, a straight-up rage-on-the-road genre movie in the “Duel,””Changing Lanes” or “Falling Down” mold. But Crowe, overweight and the very embodiment of “gone to seed,” gives this villain-we-all-know a face to fear and a hulking pick-up truck to match. Read full review
50
VarietyGuy LodgeJul 30, 2020
The carnage is the point here, not any of the reasoning behind it, and Borte and Crowe bring it to a suitably frothing, furious head: Some movies just want to watch the world burn, preferably on a very big screen. Read full review
45
TheWrapSteve PondAug 19, 2020
A brutal action flick that’s running on ugly from start to finish, the film from director Derrick Borte flirts with having something to say about stressful, angry times and toxic masculinity, but settles for letting Russell Crowe glower, seethe and leave a whole lotta destruction in his gruesome wake. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattAug 19, 2020
It doesn't help that Pistorius' Rachel spends the first 75 of it like a woman who's never seen a horror movie — if there were noises in the basement, she'd run right down to investigate with a plastic spork in her hand — and the final 15 like a ninja assassin who invented them. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Aug 18, 2020
This may be the first role that’s really capitalized on Crowe’s celebrity reputation as a hothead, even if the unnamed lunatic he’s playing only barks threats into a phone instead of chucking it at anyone. Read full review
40
Film ThreatMatthew PassantinoAug 22, 2020
The movie knows what it is, and undoubtedly offers some tense moments, but once the plot contrivances start to stack up, Unhinged becomes too silly for its own good. It leans heavily into the violence to distract, but the flailing story surrounding it. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreAug 21, 2020
For a movie marking a week in which theaters are reopening, Unhinged feels a lot like a movie that would be best caught on cable someday. Read full review
40
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisAug 20, 2020
While Derrick Borte’s filmmaking is bluntly efficient — and the vehicular stunt work impressive — the character is a windup toy, a dumb and dirty symbol of male grievance. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireAug 20, 2020
Pistorius does solid work throughout in expressing various states of panic, but she’s mainly reacting to Crowe’s improbable omnipresence. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyAug 19, 2020
His Unhinged character is a pill-popping mouth breather with a sweaty beard and big, big gut. He combines the cruelty of a bear-baiter with the appearance of an actual bear. It’s kind of a neat trick, actually: the unbearable bearishness of Russell Crowe. If Disney goes the “Jungle Book” route again, consider him a lock for Baloo. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerAug 14, 2020
The thin premise is just an excuse for an ultra-violent film. Worse, with the final scene, the suggestion is made that all the mayhem was the woman’s fault. Unhinged falls down in the worst ways possible. Read full review
33
The PlaylistRafael MotamayorAug 27, 2020
Watching Russell Crowe as a genuinely frightening villain sounds entertaining, but the bitterness and contempt seething through “Unhinged” is repellant enough to make you want to shower afterward. Read full review
30
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 25, 2020
Even marking on a B-movie curve, Unhinged is running on empty. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangAug 20, 2020
Despite its bullet-point nods to toxic masculinity and some glib armchair sociology about the rage-fueled society we have become, “Unhinged” doesn’t have much on its mind. Its sharpest subtext derives from the casting of Crowe himself, whose malevolent glare and low, insinuating growl are scarily believable here, even as they suggest a self-conscious dig at his own past persona. Read full review
30
Screen DailyWendy IdeJul 30, 2020
The car chases should be the escapist, high-octane fun part of the movie. But fun is in short supply in a picture which is fuelled by a full tank of ill-will and fury. Read full review
25
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckAug 20, 2020
At certain points that strain all credulity, you’re just hoping Crowe will look up and wink, and maybe whisper his famous “Gladiator” line: “Are you not entertained?” Because then we could laugh along with him — as we can with a humorous tweet he recently sent, promoting the film. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineChuck BowenAug 18, 2020
Unhinged is essentially a nihilistic, style-free destructo-rama that’s designed to make us feel like shit. Read full review
25
IndieWireKaleem AftabJul 30, 2020
Dressed heavy-set, Crowe is all grimaces and frowns in disgust at everything around him. His only emotional note is all ANGRY, resulting in a parody of his own performances. It’s Crowe on overdrive, and it’s horrible. Read full review
20
CNNBrian LowryAug 20, 2020
A small-scale movie with a throwback drive-in feel that loses nothing in an at-home setting, and based on its minimal merit, has little to lose in any event. Read full review
20
The Hollywood ReporterStephen DaltonJul 30, 2020
Without Crowe's brooding performance, Unhinged would just be another forgettable, formulaic, functional B-movie. With the burly Kiwi on board, it is transformed into a forgettable, formulaic, functional B-movie starring Russell Crowe. Read full review
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