Because of the Rona, movie theaters have been shutdown since March. That means we haven't had a chance to see any movies at a theater since before those times. To be honest, I don't remember what came out earlier this year or what films I saw in the theaters between January and February. In fact, the last movie I saw that I can remember was Stu Wars Episode 9: The Search For Lando's Weiner.
We did watch Pixar's Onward on Disney+ but that doesn't count because it was released to that platform and was viewed at home.
But not tonight. AMC Coon Rapids 16 has re-opened with only 5 films currently playing. A handful of the films are new. I'm guessing the next movie we will see is Wonder Woman 1984 or Tenet.
So onto this Fat Russell Crowe movie: Unhinged, which was released the weekend of my 36th birthday. Yay me.
Fightin' Round the City Highways stars John Goodman, I mean Fat Russell Crowe, and uh... that one dude from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Other than that the cast is mostly no-names and uninteresting characters who don't have big parts. This is more a showdown between Crowe and a chick who farts on him at a stoplight because reasons.
SPOILERS START HERE
Crowe is a pissed-off-recently-divorced-Trump-Supporter who has chronic ball pain due to an unknown cause. The film begins with him murdering the fuuuuck out of at least two people, and then we're shown an incredibly relevant credit sequence that fits 2020 to a tee. There's so much anger in this country that we've reached a boiling point. You have dickheads on one side supporting a turd, and dickheads on the other side looting and burning down buildings because they are taking advantage of a shitty situation. Welcome to America 2020. Vote STU-2020, like your life depends on it. If you want four more years of this shit, better trust the dude who thinks windmills cause cancer or that we should ingest bleach.
We meet a worthless mother and her stu kids/brother/girlfriend and I don't really care. The worthless mother takes her stuboy to school beacuse she's a terrible mother and always late due to a recent divorce. Along the way, she stops behind Crowe at a stoplight and the light turns green. Crowe doesn't go so she lays on her horn and then goes around him when the light turns yellow.
He pulls up beside her at the next light and starts fartin round the world with his scary southern accent. She loses him and drops the stuboy off at school. Later, she pulls in a gas station and fills up her car because she's stu and her tank is empty. i recently had to get on Melanie for not filling up her car more often so I can relate. Crowe finds her at the station and steals her phone. This is actually one of my favorite sequences of the film because super spoilers happen. The game is set. The worthless mother didn't apologize and so fightin' round the world Fat Crowe is mega super arm pissed off. He starts shinging people she loves left and right until she, um... what does he want her to do? Apologize and mean it? Oh and vote for Trump. KAGA.
So the rest of the movie unfolds kind of like the film breakdown and ends pretty much the same way down to J.T. Walsh getting beaten by a random chain hanging on a truck by Kurt Russell, which I thought was a clever callback to a much better film......
END SPOILERS.
So given this is the first movie released since the pandemic fucked up theaters and life in general, it's interesting to go back to the movies in a socially distanced world. Of course the residents of the Twin Cities aren't morons like the idiots in Sturgis, and wear masks. So I felt safe seeing this scary movie. From the previews I honestly wasn't expecting much from it, but what I got was a bit more than I expected. That's not to say this film is super excellent fun time awesome. No, it kind of drags in places and the actions that happen are pretty implausible at times (Breakdown was the same way).
I do give it credit though for having a few surprises in store, and things that caught me and Melnie off gaurd. Both of us jumped at the same time during the end sequence.
I must say though, Fat Russell Crowe looks a lot like John Goodman. Crowe does a good job playing a pissed off down on his luck/life guy (this sentence feels like it's been typed before), and he's scary a few times. He also loses his southern accent a few times as well. The main worthless mother character wasn't very interesting and I didn't find myself connecting to her that much. Her stuboy is kind of worthless too, and his acting wasn't good.
I kind of felt like at times the script was kind of stretching plausibility, or relevancy. It tries to be action packed but it gives its characters nothing to do for long stretches of driving/talking on the phone. The problem is, that's a huge chunk of this film. It wastes a few moments by speeding through parts where it could've been so much cooler. Granted, I read the Wikipedia article about this movie and agree with the other esteemed Cobblebottom reviewers who said the same thing. I wanted more, but I got an average smuggled in M&Ms flick that doesn't signal 2020 being a good year for cinema.
Good thing we've got so many promising films to look forward to, including Tenet which comes out next week. There's also Greenland has Fallen with American Mike, a complete rip off of Dumb Impact or Night of the Buttsters where a grandpa falls off a second story for no reason, and his grandson cries.
Other films coming out include Black Widow, which I couldn't care less...
Honest Thief, which has Liam Neeson playing Liam Neeson
and a couple of bad acted independent movies including one called "Infidel" which looks horrible.
So what should I give Fat Russell Crowe? I'll give him Tugboat, and 2.4321 stars out of 5. This film isn't terrible but it leaves much more to be desired.
![Image](http://www.ubstudios.com/images/unh.jpg)
Next time, try a courtesy fart... like this (toot toot), and apologize for farting on my car
![Image](http://www.ubstudios.com/images/unh2.jpg)
This lady has more energy than the main character does during the entire film. She also saw Godzilla: Kaing of The Monsters