Unhinged (2020) / YMMV

Accidental Aesop: Don't be a hero unless you know what you're doing. It'll probably get you hurt/killed. The Nice Guy at the gas station tries to help Rachel by getting the Man's license plate and escorting her to her vehicle, which are fairly reasonable things to do, but then he tries to prevent him from following Rachel by standing in front of his truck. The Man runs him over and nearly kills him. It's just safer/easier to immediately call the police and let them handle it—something Rachel doesn't do until it's far too late.
Alternative Character Interpretation: It's hard to say exactly just what the Man's motivation even is. One would think that he is motivated by Rachel learning to apologize and make it sincere, however, on the other hand, it's implied that the Man is simply looking for an excuse to kill people and that nothing Rachel says would've changed a thing, even if she sincerely apologized, or if she had even honked her horn in the first place.
- Was the Man simply a Nice Guy and an average joe who had had been wronged and screwed over by others to the point that he finally reached his Rage Breaking Point or was he a bully and a Jerkass who brought his own troubles on himself and refused to accept blame, instead deciding to take out his rage out on innocent strangers?
Angst Aversion: Regardless of your feelings towards Tom or Rachel, there are a few people who do not want watch this movie due to the terrifying and paranoia inducing plot of a deranged man torturing a woman over a minor infraction, and this film can trigger PTSD in those who have been victims of stalking, or attempted murder and possibly other abuse, and it didn't help that Tom goes after Rachel's friends and family (including her teenage son), just for knowing her. Some people who did see the movie said it was hard to watch and wouldn't likely see it again.
Catharsis Factor: After all the horrible acts he committed in the name of petty revenge, watching The Man get a pair of scissors rammed into his eye and then booted all the way through his skull is immensely satisfying.
Common Knowledge: According to certain people, Rachel honked at The Man because he didn't move fast enough at a stoplight that was green. In truth, she waited a long time before she even honked at all, and finally got fed up with him when the light turned yellow, something that would piss many drivers off in real life.
Complete Monster: The man who calls himself "Tom Cooper" is a deranged psychopath who opens the film breaking into his ex-wife's house to murder her and her boyfriend. Enraged when protagonist Rachel Hunter doesn't apologize for honking her horn at him, he dedicates himself to showing her how bad her day can get by stalking and terrorizing her; killing her best friend and lawyer Andy; attacking her younger brother Fred, killing his fiancée; and forcing Fred to write a hate letter to Rachel, and has him recite it to her over the phone. After attempting to burn Fred to death, "Tom" gives chase to Rachel once more, showing no care or concern over the resulting collisions and civilian deaths, and tries to strangle Rachel's 15-year-old son when he gets his hands on him.
Draco in Leather Pants: The Man, despite being a misogynistic Serial Killer with a Hair-Trigger Temper and no redeeming qualities. This can be attributable to the film coming out during the COVID-19 Pandemic when many already stressed people were pushed to breaking point and many were enraged further at others who refused to observe protocol out of selfish petulance.
Esoteric Happy Ending: Although the films seems to end on a happy note with Rachel finally killing the Man and getting word that her brother is alive, it ignores the fact the man sent all her money to her ex — meaning she is now completely broke and still without a job, both her friend/divorce lawyer and her brother’s fiancée are dead and she will likely be scarred by this incident for the rest of her life.^note
Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: An ironic case where the "Villain" in question is a straight up Jerkass. Rachel is seen by many as a "Karen" type of person who's at fault for the entire movie's events, while The Man is seen as someone who's trying to teach this "Karen" a lesson in swallowing her pride as he so claims. In truth, The Man is an unstable violent individual who had already committed the premeditated double-homicide of his ex-wife and her boyfriend. Rachel is a woman who made the common error of sleeping in late and thus was in a hurry and was rightfully annoyed when a car didn't go when the light was green, and stayed still when it turned yellow, and refused to humor him with an apology when he was creepily speaking with her son against her wishes.
Just Here for Godzilla: You wanna see Russell Crowe mugging at the camera for 90 minutes? Then you get that in spades.
Memetic Mutation: Given Russell Crowe's past history with anger issues and assaulting people, people commonly joke that this film is either a documentary of Russell Crowe's day to day life or a film adaptation of Fightin' Around The World.
Misaimed Fandom: A surprising amount of viewers support the Man to some extent.
Moral Event Horizon: If the Man hadn't crossed it already in the prologue, he does for sure when he tries to throttle Kyle with a power cable during the final showdown without showing even a shred of hesitation or remorse.
- His murder of Mary is this. Up until this point, his acts of violence were a result of rage and frustration. Not only does he lay a brutal beating on Mary for literally no reason, he then kills her by pushing her into her fiancé's knife, cruelly saying "Look what you did!" This is truly the moment that establishes the Man as a sadist.
Rooting for the Empire: As seen in the YouTube comments of the trailers, many viewers root for the Man even as he stalks Rachel, assaults and kills many innocent people and generally acts like a Jerkass simply because Rachel honked at him at a traffic stop. It could be due to the viewers disliking Rachel's "Karen" personality, preferring Russell Crowe's acting, or a Misaimed Fandom of increasingly misogynistic undertones.
Ron the Death Eater: Viewers often portray Rachel as a "Karen" who deserves part or all the horrible things that happened to her due to her being entitled, petty or emotional. Her greatest crime in the film is refusing to humor an obnoxious, murderous creep with an apology, which makes it seem that she is Made Out to Be a Jerkass due to No Sympathy for Grudgeholders from the audience. Some viewers even blame her for the events of the film because she slept in and got caught in traffic, as if she should have realized that sleeping in would result in her being chased by a maniac.
So Okay, It's Average: With ratings between 45% and 55% on Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes, respectively, general consensus is that Unhinged is a serviceable B-movie without any outstanding features other than Russell Crowe's performance. Subverted on Amazon Prime, where it was regarded positively, helped by the film being featured to Prime members free on occasions.
Spiritual Successor: To Falling Down. Both revolve around a working-class, middle-aged man who has been left by his wife and fired from his job and is now taking his wrath out on anyone who provokes him and are set over the course of a single day. The difference being that Bill Foster, bad as he was, mostly stuck to petty yet extreme displays of aggression and only directly killed one person in self-defense while The Man has already killed two at the start and does so with many others without a second thought, just to go after Rachel. While Bill was portrayed sympathetically, as an extremely troubled man who was as much a victim of his own serious anger issues as everyone else was and who just wanted to go back to a time when things were happy, The Man is portrayed as an absolute monster with no redeeming traits of any kind.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: One of the main characters is highly unlikable, and the other one is seen as unsympathetic by many people:
- While The Man has an understandable reason to be annoyed and he did apologize for not moving fast enough at a green light (see Unintentionally Sympathetic below) he's still an unrepentant murderer who murdered his ex-wife and her boyfriend and tries to kill someone and her son over her not giving him an apology. Doesn't help that his rampage gets other innocent people killed or injured.
- While Rachel is nowhere near as bad as The Man, her rude attitude towards The Man all because he didn't move fast enough at a green light (something that he apologized for) makes her quite unlikable to some. Even worse is that she never apologizes for said attitude even though her son constantly told her to do so and that she got herself and her son into this mess because of her being irresponsible by sleeping-in which caused her to run late to her client (who was her main source of income) who she ends up losing.
Unintentionally Sympathetic:
- The people in the restaurant who witness Andy's murder. One would point out that they're all stupid or cowardly for not doing anything to stop it, but this is a justified case of the Bystander Syndrome. The people witness what's happening, but they're not apathetic. Some of them run away; some of them shout for help; some of them film the event as it goes down (and it's because of this that the police later figure out the Man's identity). But given that the Man manhandles Andy with no effort, looks like he weighs well over two hundred pounds, and the fact that he already critically injured someone who did try to help earlier, it's easy to understand why no one tried to help.
- The Man comes off as this to some. Prior to this, he might have been just an average guy. Then, his wife divorces him and he loses most of his possessions as a result. He also loses his job and has his pension benefits canceled. Given that the film implies this takes place during or around the COVID-19 Pandemic and the resulting lockdown when financial strains, anxiety and seeing many others refuse to observe protocol were very common, suffering events of this kind could test anyone's sanity limits. Althought he loses much, if not all of sympathy when he remorselessly kills innocent bystanders.

YMMV / Unhinged (2020)

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