Introduction to the movie

An American thriller movie, “Unhinged”, was released in the year 2020. The movie was directed by German-born American filmmaker Derrick Borte, and this was his first directorial debut movie. The movie stars actors like Russell Crowe playing Tom Cooper, Caren Pistorius as Rachel Hunter, Gabriel Bateman as Kyle Flynn, Jimmi Simpson as Andy, Austin P. McKenzie as Fred besides many more.

In the opening scene of the movie, a man, Tom Cooper is shown stopping his car in front of a house, in the very early hours of the morning. It is heavily raining outside, and Tom is shown taking some medicines, throwing away his wedding ring and burning a match stick and further watching it burn, depicting that he is a mentally disturbed man.

Tom comes out of his car with inflammable material and a hammer and heads towards the main door of a house. The house belongs to his ex-wife, who stays there with her boyfriend. Tom bangs on the door with his hammer, and while his ex-wife and his boyfriend come downstairs after hearing the noise, Tom kills them both with his hammer, throws the inflammable material inside, and burns down the house as well.

After that, he starts his car and gets away from the place. There is a huge blast in the house, and the alarm bells of the nearby cars are heard.

The main character Rachel is introduced

A recently divorced woman, Rachel Flynn is shown getting up in the morning by the ringing of her phone. She is a single mother, who lives in New Orleans with her grown-up son Kyle. The person on the other side is her divorce-lawyer Andy, who informs her that her ex-husband has filed a new case in court, and is demanding her house as well. But Andy assures Rachel that he will soon file an objection to the petition, and she needs not worry.

Just then, Rachel realizes that she is already running late since she has to drop her son to school and rush to her office as well. Rachel’s son, Kyle tells her to hurry up as she has to go for her client meeting too in the day. Rachel has her brother Fred along with his fiancee Mary, both living in her home too.

The family of Rachel

While Fred and Kyle are having breakfast, the news of the previous night’s blast is coming on the TV, in which Tom was involved. Rachel informs her brother Fred that he too needs to help her and pay the rent, as she may have to sell off her house, as she can’t afford to pay her mother’s expenses any longer. Fred informs her that he is going to start his own business soon. Kyle is directed by his mother Rachel to carry the rest of his breakfast with him, as they are getting late. Both of them leave the house for Kyle’s school and Rachel’s office respectively, in Rachel’s car. While driving, Rachel takes care to increase Kyle’s vocabulary of English words too, as a pastime.

They realize that the traffic is too much, and so Rachel suggests that they take the freeway to reach sooner. Kyle does not agree to this and so Rachel gives him her phone, to check the traffic situation in the area. Kyle is surprised that Rachel hasn’t put any passcode on the phone, and asks his mother about the same. Rachel replies that she herself doesn’t remember them afterward, and therefore she doesn’t have the habit of creating them. Kyle warns her that this can prove to be dangerous in the future, to which Rachel agrees.

The traffic situation, as depicted by the mobile phone is not reliable and hence Rachel decides to take the freeway to reach faster. On the way, Kyle’s father Richard calls on her phone and informs Kyle that their program for the weekend stands canceled, due to his prior office commitments. Rachel tells Richard to inform them when he is ready for this, and not make any preplans which usually get canceled. She tells Richard to call later, as they are approaching Kyle’s school.

Again, Rachel gets a call from her client Deborah, enquiring from her whether she is arriving on time or not. When she gets to know that Rachel will take time to reach her, she tells Rachel, that she is fired from the job, due to her being late.

Amidst all this, they realize again that the freeway also is full of traffic, and hence they take shortcuts, to reach another road. While they are driving freely, a car stands still in spite of the traffic light turning green. When even after continuous honking at the vehicle, the driver doesn’t move the car, Rachel takes away her car and drives past this Vehicle, only to be stuck in a jam again.

The confrontation between Tom and Rachel

By then, the driver of the vehicle, who is in fact Tom Cooper, blocks their way, approaches near them, and stops adjacent to their car. He asks Rachel to apologize for continuously honking at him, to which Rachel replies that she has done nothing wrong since he was blocking her way, and therefore won’t apologize. Tom says that he was thinking something else, and hence couldn’t move even after the lights turned green, and so is apologetic. But, he again asks Rachel to apologize too, which Rachel again declines.

Tom warns Rachel that he will teach her a lesson. A brief chase takes place, but Rachel is able to dodge Tom and head towards Kyle’s school to drop him there. After dropping Kyle at his school, she talks to her lawyer friend Andy and informs him about the incidents, happening with her since the morning. Andy says, that it really has been a bad day for her, right from the morning.

Rachel approaches her friend for help

Rachel asks Andy if they can meet and have breakfast together, which can work as therapy for her. Andy agrees to it, and they decide to meet at the Darrows Restaurant in twenty minute’s time. Andy sends her a reminder on her mobile phone so that she doesn’t miss out. She drives towards the restaurant, but sensing that her car is running out of gas, she stops her car at a gas station and fills the gas. Rachel buys some stuff also at the outlet, inside the premises.

Just after paying money at the counter, when she is about to leave, she notices the same vehicle behind her parked car, which Tom was driving. Rachel stays there and is reluctant to move ahead. Seeing her confused and a little perturbed, the store employee asks her, if there is anything wrong with her. Rachel tells her that the driver of that vehicle is stalking her, and that she had a brief exchange of words in the morning with him, at the traffic signal.

A customer, who is also present there, offers help to her and tells her that he can accompany Rachel to her car. Rachel agrees after initial inhibition, and the man comes out of the store with Rachel. Being in the driver’s seat, Tom notices both of them coming out. The man tells Rachel to sit in the car, and he himself tries to move forward, to note down the number of Tom’s van. After the man reveals the number to Rachel, she thanks him and drives off.

Tom chases Rachel’s car

The man who tried to help Rachel, tells Tom to move away and not to bother others, and also that he has noted down his car number. Enraged by this, Tom hits the man with his carry van and starts to chase Rachel’s car too. During the chase, Tom displays a mobile phone to her, and she gets to know that Tom has taken her phone away. After a long chase, Rachel manages to evade Tom and stops her car.

Here, Rachel’s lawyer friend Andy, who is waiting for her at the restaurant, tries to call her and sends her a voice message to call him. Just then Tom enters the restaurant and approaches Andy and sits beside him. Since Tom had taken Rachel’s phone, he reads the message from Andy indicating that Andy and Rachel are going to meet at the Restaurant. Tom initiates a talk with Andy, saying that he is Rachel’s old friend.

Rachel’s friend Andy gets killed by Tom

After trying to make friends with Andy, he tells Andy that he can make him talk with Rachel right now on his phone. When Andy gives him the phone, he talks with Rachel and threatens her. On this, Andy asks for his phone back, but Tom beats and hits him in front of everyone, and ends up killing him, by stabbing him in the neck. The entire thing is filmed by the customers, present in the restaurant on their phones. Tom who is still carrying Andy’s phone, informs Rachel that Andy is dead, and while moving out of the restaurant, throws Andy’s phone away.

While driving, he calls on his own phone which is in Rachel’s car, from Rachels’s mobile, which he stole from Rachel’s car. When she picks up, Tom tells Rachel that he knows everything about her appointments and that her son’s name is Kyle. When Rachel says that Kyle is not her son, Tom warns Rachel that she should not try to be overt smart with him, since he has read all the messages from Rachel’s phone and gone through her pictures with Kyle.

Rachel is threatened by Tom

After this, Tom gives her three names, from which he asks her to choose any one name, that needs to die next. The three choices that he gives her are her ex-husband Richard, her mother and his son Kyle. When she tells him to kill her instead, Tom refuses and insists that she picks a name, only from the choices given to her. Hesitatingly, Rachel provides Tom the name of Deborah, her client’s name, to kill.

After the call is over, Rachel calls the police and informs them about the incidents. Here, Rachel’s brother Fred is watching the news on the TV, where the footage of the restaurant crime incident is being shown. Suddenly, Fred realizes that his fiancée is not replying to him from the adjacent room.

Tom murders Fred’s fiancee too

Here, the Police go to Deborah’s house, as per the inputs from Rachel. But it was a ploy by Tom, to distract her and the police. Tom actually has barged into the house of Rachel, and taken Fred’s fiancée Mary, hostage. He gets Mary killed by Fred accidentally and tries to justify this by saying that Rachel’s actions have done all this.

Here, Rachel reaches Kyle’s school, but Tom who is tracking her location through her phone only, calls her and asks her whether she is inside or outside the school. When she says that she is outside the school, Tom asks her to rush inside, take her son Kyle with her and move out fast and call him after that. Tom also threatens Rachel, that she has only three minutes for all this, after which her brother will be killed.

Rachel rushes inside the school premises and pleads to the teachers to allow Kyle to be taken by her. The teachers don’t allow citing school rules, but after much persuasion, she is allowed to take Kyle outside with her.

Rachel’s brother attacked by Tom

Here, Tom forces Fred to write a letter to his sister, while Fred is tied to a chair. While driving along with Kyle, Rachel calls Tom, as per his earlier instructions. Tom forces Fred to read the letter aloud over the phone, while Rachel is listening with speakers put on. Fred reads the letter and tells Rachel that she is the most selfish woman, and he is ashamed to be her brother. He informs Rachel that Mary is dead, and she is responsible for her death.

Actually, these are the words that Tom forcibly makes Fred write, so as to torture Rachel, due to his grudge over the argument with her. Just then, a cop arrives at the spot and warns Tom, but Tom sets the chair on fire, to which Fred is tied. The cop fires on Tom and the bullet hits Tom’s shoulder and Tom gets injured.

However, the cop gets engaged in dousing the fire, and taking advantage of this, Tom escapes. Under trauma, Rachel gets down from her car and vomits. Just then, Tom’s phone which is kept in her car rings. Though Kyle advises her, not to take the call, she replies that it may be the call from the cops. However, it is Tom on the phone, who informs her that her brother is dead, and he himself has got shot in the shoulder by the cop. Tom reminds Rachel, that she didn’t say sorry to him from heart, to which Rachel tells him that he didn’t deserve that word. 

Rachel decides to fight back now

A heated exchange of words takes place between Rachel and Tom, and Tom warns her, that he is going to kill Kyle now. She too warns Tom, that she will kill him, and breaks Tom’s phone which lies with her, by throwing it on the ground. Rachel drives towards the police station along with Kyle, and while driving, Rachel tells Kyle to try and find her tablet in the car, which also had gone missing.

Luckily for them, Kyle finds the tablet under her seat. They try to find the location of Tom through her phone, from an app present on the tablet, since Rachel’s phone is with Tom, and both the phones were connected. They come to know, that Tom is near them only, and later see him driving just ahead of their car. Rachel drives past Tom’s car and tries to reach out to a police officer who is driving alone in his Van, just ahead at some distance. Tom sees them and bangs his vehicle with the police van, which causes a massive collision of many cars, including the police van.

Tom continues to chase them, and when they try to call the emergency number from the tablet, the officer tells them that the whole team is busy attending to the accident victims, and they should somehow manage to reach a safer place and stay connected. Just then, the battery of the tablet goes off, and they lose connectivity with the police. Now, with nowhere to escape, Rachel tells Kyle that they will have to go to Kyle’s grandmother’s home, since they know that place very well, and Tom will take some time to get to know the area.

Tom chases Rachel to her mother’s home too

Doing exactly the same, Rachel drives towards her mom’s home, while Tom is still chasing them. Somehow, in the midway, Rachel manages to turn sharply towards the inner road, and enters the locality, moving fast in between the lanes. Tom loses track of them and now tries to find them while driving slowly inside the locality.

Here, Rachel reaches her mother’s house and tells Kyle to hide for some time as a backup plan. She assures Kyle that they both will get through this problem. Kyle enters the house and hides in the upper story of the house while Rachel looks for her scissors in the car. She catches hold of a golf stick also and waits for Tom.

Here, Tom while driving slowly notices Rachel’s car in front of the house. As soon as he tries to approach inside, Rachel comes from nowhere and bangs Tom’s Vehicle with her car. When Rachel gets out of her car and looks for Tom, whose car has turned upside down. Tom attacks her and renders her motionless with his punches.

Now, Tom a criminal-minded Psycho, heads towards the house and looks for Kyle. He even tries to call Kyle and disguises himself as a cop. But Kyle doesn’t come out. However, Kyle inadvertently drops something which alerts Tom and grabs his attention.

He heads upstairs but Rachel reaches there first and tries to pacify Kyle. Tom drags Rachel outside and hits her several times while the police also arrive near the spot.

Finally Rachel finishes Tom

After Rachel is down, Tom also drags Kyle out to hit him, but Rachel gets up and tries to stop Tom. Being stronger amongst them, Tom hits and punches her hard. He begins to strangle Kyle with a wire, but Rachel manages to find the scissors in her pocket and stabs Tom in the eye. Tom tries to get up but she again hits him in the eye killing him on the spot.

Police arrive at the spot and take everything into control. The cop tells Rachel that her brother has survived and will be fine soon.

Both Rachel and Kyle are happy and go to see him in the hospital. While Rachel is driving, a car cuts off Rachel which makes her angry. However, she stops herself from honking at the driver to the amusement of Kyle who remarks ‘Good Choice and the movie ends there.