Unhinged Ending Explained: What the Final Scene Means
Here's what the ending to Unhinged and its final scene really mean. Director Derrick Borte has never been one to shy away from exploring the dark side of the American experiment with his work. A German-born filmmaker who grew up in the U.S., Borte got his start writing and directing 2009's The Joneses, a satirical examination of modern consumerism. He would later go on to cast Jim Gaffigan in one of his rare non-comedic roles in 2019's American Dreamer, a neo-noir crime thriller that taps into contemporary economic anxiety.
His latest movie, Unhinged, stars Russell Crowe as an unstable man who begins to terrorize a woman named Rachel Hunter (Caren Pistorius) after she honks and yells at him for refusing to drive his truck forward after the stoplight at an intersection turns green. It's the first movie to play in a wide theatrical release in the U.S. (save for areas like New York and Los Angeles, where theaters are still shut-down) since the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic took a turn for the worse in March. Distributor Solstice Studios has made this a key part of the film's marketing, and even changed its release date a few times in order to ensure it would be the first feature to test the waters at the box office, post-coronavirus lockdowns.
Much like Borte's previous work, Unhinged is one thing on the surface (a pulpy thriller about a road-raging murderer), but has more than you might expect going on beneath the surface. To better understand its social commentary, one should start by looking closer at its antagonist: a character listed as nothing more than "Man" in the movie's end credits.
From the very beginning, Unhinged presents Crowe's character as a bit of an enigma. In the film's opening minutes, he's shown breaking into a house, killing its occupants, lighting the building on fire, and driving away (unnervingly) calmly as the house erupts into flames in the background. He later introduces himself to Rachel's friend and divorce lawyer, Andy (Jimmi Simpson), as Tom Cooper, and it's most likely his real name, considering how little he seems to care about the consequences of his actions by then. It doesn't really matter, though; the idea he could be any random person is essential to the movie's core message (more on that later), which explains why it only refers to him as "Man" during the credits. As the film's tagline puts it, "He can happen to anyone."
Through a series of news reports watched by the film's supporting characters, Unhinged gradually reveals more about Tom: he has a history of substance abuse and violence, was fired from his longtime job at an auto plant a year earlier (right before his pension), and only just lost his new job a day ago. It's also implied the stress from his unemployment contributed to the crumbling of his marriage, which culminated in Tom murdering his ex-wife and burning down her house (as seen in the film's prologue).
Things aren't going so well for Rachel, either. She's currently in the middle of a challenging divorce and is trying to care for her son, Kyle (Gabriel Bateman), while at the same time housing her under-achieving brother Fred (Austin P. McKenzie). Combined with the stress of having lost the salon she previously operated, she's usually exhausted and struggles to do anything on-time. Already running late driving Gabriel to school, Rachel lose another job on the way over, shortly before her encounter with Tom. As a result, she understandably has no desire to hear Tom out when he pulls up in his truck beside her at a later stop, demanding she apologize after (sorta) admitting he was in the wrong before. Unfortunately, things only spiral downward from there, as Tom begins to pursue Rachel in his truck, eventually attacking - and, in some cases, killing - those closest to her along the way.
Unhinged wastes little time before establishing its primary through line. Following the gruesome prologue, the film launches into a montage of clips and voiceover commentary from news reporters and pundits discussing the taxing nature of modern life (all while the opening credits roll). The sequence touches on a lot of issues in a short amount of time, ranging from people's excessive documentation of their daily lives on social media to social protests against systematic inequality, reduced job opportunities, and even infidelity. Naturally, its main focus is on incidents of road rage, ranging from footage of two drivers exchanging harsh words with one another to terrible accidents caused directly by people behaving angrily behind the wheel. If there's a unifying theme to this montage, it's the modern world is very difficult to live in and too often leads to people snapping under the pressure by doing harmful things they otherwise wouldn't, were their lives easier.
The movie then proceeds to illustrate its meaning by focusing on Tom and Rachel, both of whom know from personal experience just how tough life in the 21st century can be. At the same time, Unhinged doesn't ignore the importance of personal responsibility. Rachel may've only been able to do so much to keep her former business afloat and prevent her marriage from collapsing, but she is responsible for both how she manages her time and takes out her frustration on others. Tom's in a similar boat: he may've been screwed over by his previous employer, but he was also the one who failed to get a handle on his temper and addresses his violent tendencies, which led to the demise of his own marriage and Tom going off the deep end. Even setting Tom's violence aside, Rachel is still more sympathetic since she doesn't have the toxic sense of entitlement that he does (a characteristic that no doubt contributed to his downfall). The message here is basic, but clear: you can only control how the world treats you so much, but you do have some say in how you respond to it.
There's another side to Unhinged's deeper meaning, and it's all about having empathy for others whenever possible. Obviously, not every driver who does something irresponsible or wrong while operating their vehicle is going to be an unstable middle-aged white man who's decided the world is sick and he is therefore justified is doing whatever he feels will tip the scales back into balance (an archetype that's popped up in other movies, with the late Joel Schumacher's Falling Down being a noteworthy example). Even so, one never knows what someone else is going through and/or what may've prompted them to behave irresponsibly behind the wheel in the first place. And because of that, you never know if some otherwise trivial action will be the trigger that results in them cracking (assuming they haven't already cracked, as was the case when Rachel first met Tom).
In the movie's final scene, Rachel takes that lesson to heart, having barely survived her final encounter with Tom (in which she managed to kill him in self-defense). As she and Kyle drive to the hospital to visit Fred (who's badly burned, but still alive following his own near-death at Tom's hands earlier in the film), another car suddenly cuts across in front of her and Rachel nearly honks her horn at them... before thinking better on it, much to Kyle's relief. It's played as a light-hearted moment of catharsis after her and Kyle's ordeal since, again, the other driver was most likely not an unstable murderer (in the worst-case scenario, they were probably just being a jerk). Still, it all goes back to Unhinged's tagline and refusal to give Crowe's character a proper name during the credits: you're better off avoiding conflict whenever it's unnecessary, especially since you never know if an otherwise forgettably awkward encounter with a stranger could transform into something much worse.