BEFORE: Lucy Faust carries over from "Nickel Boys". So far it's been Louisiana week here at the Movie Year, this is the fourth film in a row either set there or filmed there (or both). And I'm willing to bet that has something to do with the casting, why I've seen some of the same actors a few times this week - or perhaps it's got something to do with tax incentives for filming there, who knows.
By chance I've programmed this film for August 20, and that's REALLY close to the anniversary of its release date, five years ago. This was one of the first, or perhaps even the first, major release since the theaters closed down in March 2020. Drive-in theaters opened that summer, and Hollywood was still testing the waters for re-opening, starting with this film. Well, that's not a good sign because it seems like they knew they had a stinker of a film on the shelf and were willing to use that as a test case - if it tanked, no big deal, just try again in a month or so.
It's also available right now on iTunes (yes, some people still use Apple iTunes) as a rental for only 99 cents. While I like saving money just as much as the next guy, that's probably not a good sign either. If you look at the price of, say, comic books, most are priced at $3.99 these days, but the ones they KNOW are going to sell better (and all #1 issues) are priced at $4.99. So I'm guessing when nobody rents a particular movie via iTunes, they just keep lowering the price.
Speaking of that, I've had good luck lately with an app called TooGoodToGo that lets me buy food from NYC restaurants near closing time - the goal is to rescue food that otherwise might be thrown away and reduce waste (while increasing MY waist...). I didn't have much luck with the app before, but then I tried it on weeknights and learned there are like three pizza places near the theater that sell off remaining food, I just have to order it through the app. One has a steam table and lets me fill up a one-pound container with whatever food they have left for just $4.99, it's a great deal, and the restaurant gets to make a couple more bucks before they close, so it's a win-win.
THE PLOT: After a confrontation with an unstable man at an intersection, a woman becomes the target of his rage.
AFTER: Wow, what a terrible premise for a film, it's hard to believe that this got made at all, with a focus on such a completely unlikeable, terribly flawed character. I mean, he's almost Shakespearean in this flawed nature, like MacBeth or Hamlet or something, he just can't stop killing people. I know, Hamlet's not really a psycho-killer but he does kill Polonius almost by accident, and convinces Ophelia to go drown herself - and those were without even trying. Then he sets out to murder his own mother and stepfather, the King and Queen! That's it, Hamlet, keep reaching toward your goals. (New angle on the Hamlet story - Hamlet as psychopath...like "American Psycho" only set in medieval Denmark.)
But Russell Crowe's character here goes WAY off the deep end, the first thing we see in the film is him killing his ex-wife and her boyfriend, then setting her house on fire. Hey, divorce is never easy. Then later the film mentions that this man also lost his job prior to this, he got laid off just shy of qualifying for his full pension. Now THAT might be enough to turn some people into murdering murderers. Throw in "road rage" on top of that, and it's like a full buffet of unfettered freeway hostility.
The problem starts when Rachel Flynn oversleeps, and has to drive her son to school - he's most likely going to be late, and his third tardy mark gets him a detention. Now, I don't know much about driving kids to school since I don't have any, but when we're in North Carolina I know that my sister has to devote like three or four hours of her day just to driving the twins to school AND then waiting in a line of cars to pick them up. Well, jeez, you might as well just drive them to school and go RIGHT into the pick-up line at that point, because your whole day is shot anyway. Silly me, I said, "Why can't they just take the bus?" The bus works on some kind of centralized system where everyone is bussed to a hub and then has to take another bus out from the hub to the school, which sounds a lot dumber than the multi-bus system in my hometown that made stops at many points around town, and kids just had to go wait at whichever stop was nearest their house. But when I was growing up, we only got a car ride from Mom or Dad when we MISSED the bus. These days I can see how it makes more sense to drive your kid to school, except that it doesn't make sense at all - there's too much traffic because every other parent is also driving their kid to school because the bus system is so stupid. So it looks like no matter what, it's going to take three hours to get your kid to school, so be prepared to make them leave the house at 5 am, and if THAT'S the case, they might as well walk. If everyone walked to school, that would...no wait, that might actually work, except the kids would never go for it, they're spoiled rotten by now, that would eat into their phone time and also it's not safe - they could get hit by a car or a bus.
The second mistake Rachel makes is taking the freeway - which was designed to be faster than local streets, only it's not because everyone else is also taking it to save time, so everyone gets stuck in traffic on that very same freeway. You SHOULD take surface streets if you want to get where you're going while everyone is taking the freeway to save time. The GPS systems don't help at all, because they direct everyone to the time-saving freeway where they all get jammed up together. More recently we've seen interactive GPS systems like Wave that tell you to change your route when there's another method that will save you 5 minutes, but guess what, the system is telling that to all the OTHER drivers, too, so if you listen to the GPS advice and change your route, that's probably a mistake because the new route is about to get filled up with other cars, and you'll get stuck in traffic there, also. I think you're better off if you reject the new route, stick with the original plan, and let all the other cars get out of your way. I know it doesn't seem to make sense, but just try it, and you're welcome. Or why don't you just abandon the car and walk, you could probably use the exercise.
I go through something similar with the NYC subway - if I'm trying to get home on the L line and there's some kind of problem (and there often is) there will be an announcement over the PA system that since the L line is not currently working, I can go upstairs and take the A train to Brooklyn, where I can transfer to the G train, which will then take me to the L train. Well, by the time I make three transfers I will have spent an extra hour trying to get home OR I can just stay in one place and wait to see if they can get the L train running again in the next 20 minutes. It may seem counter-productive, sure, but everyone's in such a rush all the time, I say just stop, stay where you are, and see if the system will get better on its own. And if it doesn't, you can always just scrap your old life and start a new one in your current location.
Great, now where were w?. Ah, yes, road rage. Rachel's third mistake is getting behind a pick-up truck that does NOT move forward when the light turns green - he takes so long to go through the intersection that the light turns red again, and she feels the need to break the law and run through the red, because she's been waiting there so long that she EARNED it. Well, that's not how traffic works, is it? You miss the green, you can't leave the scene, you've got to wait for the next one. She also REALLY leans on the horn, without the "courtesy tap", you know, a friendly little "bee-beep" instead of a long, loud HHOOOONNNNNNKKKKK. Point of order, you never know what kind of day the person in the car ahead of you has been having, maybe they just killed their ex and burned their house down and they're starting to maybe feel a little guilty about that, but instead of them coming to the awful realization about what they've done, suddenly they're now outwardly projecting all that inner rage and doubt and grief and sadness and evil intent AT YOU. Hey, it could happen.
So Tom Cooper, the personification of road rage, pulls up beside Rachel at the next light - see, there's another lesson right there, if you go around someone who's ahead of you, cut them off and move forward, you're only going to end up stuck next to them 1/8 of a mile down the road. That's something important to keep in mind when you're frustrated about your lack of progress, it's usually NOT the fault of the person ahead of you, it's the fault of all the other drivers on the same road, too. There's just too damn many people in this world, there's traffic. everywhere. you. go. Sorry if that's a little too REAL for you, but if you want to get somewhere, that's on YOU because you didn't leave early enough.
I think Tom Cooper (if that is his real name) gets it, he agrees that there are too many people in this world, and he wants to do something about that. So he steals Rachel's phone and decides to start killing the people in her contact list until she apologizes and means it. Well, maybe this would cut down on the traffic eventually, but it's still not a recommended way of going about things. First he decides to attend her breakfast appointment with her divorce lawyer, and this too is kind of Shakespearean, remember that quote from Henry IV, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." We know, however, that this line was taken out of context, and good old Billy Shakes didn't mean to advocate violence against legal professionals, this was intended as a satiricial criticism of bureaucracy and how lawyers helped to maintain the privileges enjoyed by the wealthy class, and that such an extreme measure, taken at face value, could bring society to the brink of absolute intolerance, and also, wouldn't that be a real hoot. Tom Cooper takes it literally, though, because he's also a divorced person who feels they got screwed over by an attorney at some point.
From then on in the movie, it's one car chase after another, as Tom makes Rachel go and pick up her son from school, because he really really wants Rachel to feel the pain of losing the people who are the most important to her. Also he makes her choose the next victim from her contact list, but ha ha, Rachel's getting smarter because after she names the client who recently fired her, she also calls the police to tell them where the psycho who's stalking her is going to go next. But not really, because remember he's still both smarter AND meaner than she is, so he says he's going to one place, but he's really heading to her home address to kill whoever is there. Well, he likes to keep people guessing, I suppose that's what a psychopath has to do to keep the joy of murder fresh.
Really, we're just going to keep bouncing from one murder site to the next until we fill up 90 minutes, aren't we? Finally Rachel gets the idea to go to her mother's house, which will get Tom lost in a maze of suburban streets, and where they can set off her LifeAlert panic button to get the cops to show up. I was going to cite a NITPICK POINT about her leaving her red station wagon out where it was very visible, like why tip him off which house you're in? Ah, but it's all part of Rachel's attack plan, she's kind of pulling a "Home Alone" move here. Yeah, that should do it but, you know, bring along some golf clubs and sharp objects just in case. Rachel learns a valuable lesson about loud honking, which kind of seems like blaming the victim, if you ask me.
Directed by Derrick Borte
Also starring Russell Crowe (last seen in "Gladiator II"), Caren Pistorius (last seen in "Gloria Bell"), Gabriel Bateman, Jimmi Simpson (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Austin P. McKenzie, Juliene Joyner, Stephen Louis Grush, Anne Leighton (last seen in "Gangster Squad"), Devyn A. Tyler (last seen in "Shock and Awe"), Samantha Beaulieu (last seen in "The Whole Truth"), Michael Papajohn (last seen in "Madame Web"), Richie Burden, Deven MacNair, Gretchen Koerner (last seen in "Irresistible"), Donna Duplantier (last seen in "Hit Man"), Brett Smrz, Andrew Morgado (last heard in "The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two"), Kevin Howard, Mandy Kowalski.
RATING: 3 out of 10 ineffective police officers
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