The traffic light may be green, but Russell Crowe is seeing red in his latest role.
Crowe, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of heroic Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius in Gladiator, plays an unnamed character – known only as The Man – in road-rage thriller Unhinged.
The film is focused on Crowe's antagonist, who takes umbrage against a fellow driver who dares to beep her horn at him when the lights turn green at a traffic stop in an unidentified US city. Tipped over the edge, he remorselessly pursues her – and her friends and family – with just one thing on his mind: murder.
As compelling as Crowe is, when he read the script, his first response was to immediately recoil from the idea. "I was a bit affronted by how sure I was about that," he says. The New Zealand-born, Australian-raised star is hardly new to extreme characters, as his career-making turn as a neo-Nazi skinhead in Romper Stomper shows. But this was different.
"I realised I was simply afraid of the truth of this film," Crowe says. "That's why I didn't want to go anywhere near it."
The "truth" is that Unhinged is more than simply an adrenalin-fuelled thriller. "I think across western society, we're seeing these explosions of white-hot rage on a very regular basis," Crowe says. "The character in this particular movie is using his car as a weapon. But we've seen [violent] people stepping into houses of worship and schools and nightclubs … we've seen absurd explosions of rage in supermarkets over a roll of toilet paper. So, suddenly, this film is making a direct comment on where we find ourselves in western society right now."
Crowe's nameless driver may be a modern-day bogeyman, though he's far from, say, the knife-wielding Michael Myers in the Halloween horror series. If anything, Unhinged recalls Joel Schumacher's Falling Down, the controversial 1993 film in which Michael Douglas plays a white-collar worker who snaps when events conspire against him. Only snippets of Crowe's character are revealed – such as his constant use of opioids, hinting at an underlying need to medicate an unspecified physical pain. His addiction to the drugs, says Crowe, "is another very big problem in modern America".
On the flip side is Caren Pistorius, the rising South African-born New Zealand actress who made her name opposite Michael Fassbender in 2015's Slow West. She plays mother-of-one Rachel, the luckless victim terrorised to within an inch of her life.
“I never really looked at Rachel as the hero,” she says. “I thought it’s a little bit of a David-and-Goliath story. It is exciting for the ‘David’ in this to be female; it’s been a really exciting part to tackle. But a hero? I see her as an everyday woman who finds herself in a situation that is very much not an everyday situation.”
Pistorius recalls a road-rage incident she experienced as a teenager when a friend of hers cut up another driver.
"This man got really mad and was tailgating him, so my friend turned down a side street and this man followed him and blocked the street with his car." Approached by the individual, her friend manoeuvred his vehicle up on to the curb and made his escape – only to find that the man followed her friend to his house.
"That was pretty scary," Pistorius says.
This film is making a direct comment on where we find ourselves in western society right now
When she began to work on Unhinged with the film's director, Derrick Borte (The Joneses), she began to think of the story in wider terms. "Life's short and anger is a really interesting emotion," she says. "We have all experienced a version of it, but I think this film definitely takes it to a whole other level."
She points to the film’s opening credits, with news clips of real road-rage incidents (as reporters earnestly tell us: “In America, we were born angry”). “It’s very relatable,” she adds. “It is a story that takes an everyday incident and pushes it to an absolute extreme.”
Scripted by Carl Ellsworth (who has more than paid his dues with genre thrillers Red Eye and Disturbia), the film has inevitably split reviewers. Is it promoting male-instigated violence? Kevin Maher, critic for The Times, called Crowe's character the "alt-right uncle of Joaquin Phoenix's incel hero Arthur Fleck in Joker".
Indeed, Todd Phillips's $1 billion (Dh3.6bn)-grossing Oscar winner was called out for sympathising with so-called incels, members of a male-skewed online subculture characterised by misogyny and misanthropy.
Whether or not that's what the filmmakers intended with Unhinged, Crowe points out that it was vital they never tried to explain away his character's motivations with reams of backstory.
“You can’t suddenly have an expositional speech, where this guy lists the travails of his life that have brought him into this place of complete inhumanity,” he says. “I said to Borte right in the beginning, we can’t have any moments in this character that it appears we’re trying to justify [his actions].”
Unhinged may be a simmering study of toxic masculinity or a stirring look at contemporary psychological trauma. But it's perhaps best seen for its surface pleasures – "an edge-of-your-seat thriller", as Pistorius puts it.
“It’s relentless and it doesn’t stop. I think it’s exciting because it plays on that fear that we all have: how road rage can really change people’s lives.”
One thing is for sure: it’ll make you think twice about tooting your horn at the driver in front of you the next time you’re behind the wheel.
Unhinged will be UAE cinemas from Thursday, September 17
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ETFs explained
Exhchange traded funds are bought and sold like shares, but operate as index-tracking funds, passively following their chosen indices, such as the S&P 500, FTSE 100 and the FTSE All World, plus a vast range of smaller exchanges and commodities, such as gold, silver, copper sugar, coffee and oil.
ETFs have zero upfront fees and annual charges as low as 0.07 per cent a year, which means you get to keep more of your returns, as actively managed funds can charge as much as 1.5 per cent a year.
There are thousands to choose from, with the five biggest providers BlackRock’s iShares range, Vanguard, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs, Deutsche Bank AWM X-trackers and Invesco PowerShares.
The biog
Hobby: "It is not really a hobby but I am very curious person. I love reading and spend hours on research."
Favourite author: Malcom Gladwell
Favourite travel destination: "Antigua in the Caribbean because I have emotional attachment to it. It is where I got married."
Specs
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Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
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Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
Five famous companies founded by teens
There are numerous success stories of teen businesses that were created in college dorm rooms and other modest circumstances. Below are some of the most recognisable names in the industry:
- Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg and his friends started Facebook when he was a 19-year-old Harvard undergraduate.
- Dell: When Michael Dell was an undergraduate student at Texas University in 1984, he started upgrading computers for profit. He starting working full-time on his business when he was 19. Eventually, his company became the Dell Computer Corporation and then Dell Inc.
- Subway: Fred DeLuca opened the first Subway restaurant when he was 17. In 1965, Mr DeLuca needed extra money for college, so he decided to open his own business. Peter Buck, a family friend, lent him $1,000 and together, they opened Pete’s Super Submarines. A few years later, the company was rebranded and called Subway.
- Mashable: In 2005, Pete Cashmore created Mashable in Scotland when he was a teenager. The site was then a technology blog. Over the next few decades, Mr Cashmore has turned Mashable into a global media company.
- Oculus VR: Palmer Luckey founded Oculus VR in June 2012, when he was 19. In August that year, Oculus launched its Kickstarter campaign and raised more than $1 million in three days. Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion two years later.
10 tips for entry-level job seekers
- Have an up-to-date, professional LinkedIn profile. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, set one up today. Avoid poor-quality profile pictures with distracting backgrounds. Include a professional summary and begin to grow your network.
- Keep track of the job trends in your sector through the news. Apply for job alerts at your dream organisations and the types of jobs you want – LinkedIn uses AI to share similar relevant jobs based on your selections.
- Double check that you’ve highlighted relevant skills on your resume and LinkedIn profile.
- For most entry-level jobs, your resume will first be filtered by an applicant tracking system for keywords. Look closely at the description of the job you are applying for and mirror the language as much as possible (while being honest and accurate about your skills and experience).
- Keep your CV professional and in a simple format – make sure you tailor your cover letter and application to the company and role.
- Go online and look for details on job specifications for your target position. Make a list of skills required and set yourself some learning goals to tick off all the necessary skills one by one.
- Don’t be afraid to reach outside your immediate friends and family to other acquaintances and let them know you are looking for new opportunities.
- Make sure you’ve set your LinkedIn profile to signal that you are “open to opportunities”. Also be sure to use LinkedIn to search for people who are still actively hiring by searching for those that have the headline “I’m hiring” or “We’re hiring” in their profile.
- Prepare for online interviews using mock interview tools. Even before landing interviews, it can be useful to start practising.
- Be professional and patient. Always be professional with whoever you are interacting with throughout your search process, this will be remembered. You need to be patient, dedicated and not give up on your search. Candidates need to make sure they are following up appropriately for roles they have applied.
Arda Atalay, head of Mena private sector at LinkedIn Talent Solutions, Rudy Bier, managing partner of Kinetic Business Solutions and Ben Kinerman Daltrey, co-founder of KinFitz
Top tips
Create and maintain a strong bond between yourself and your child, through sensitivity, responsiveness, touch, talk and play. “The bond you have with your kids is the blueprint for the relationships they will have later on in life,” says Dr Sarah Rasmi, a psychologist.
Set a good example. Practise what you preach, so if you want to raise kind children, they need to see you being kind and hear you explaining to them what kindness is. So, “narrate your behaviour”.
Praise the positive rather than focusing on the negative. Catch them when they’re being good and acknowledge it.
Show empathy towards your child’s needs as well as your own. Take care of yourself so that you can be calm, loving and respectful, rather than angry and frustrated.
Be open to communication, goal-setting and problem-solving, says Dr Thoraiya Kanafani. “It is important to recognise that there is a fine line between positive parenting and becoming parents who overanalyse their children and provide more emotional context than what is in the child’s emotional development to understand.”
Company profile
Date started: 2015
Founder: John Tsioris and Ioanna Angelidaki
Based: Dubai
Sector: Online grocery delivery
Staff: 200
Funding: Undisclosed, but investors include the Jabbar Internet Group and Venture Friends
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
