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"Mature Content Warning!" |
| “ | Well, I don't think that's really true of any of us now, is it? But that's where we are in this world today. We seem to have developed a fundamental inability to apologize to anyone for anything. I don't even think you really know what a bad day is, but you're gonna find out. You hear me miss? You're gonna f-cking learn. | „ |
| ~ Cooper about to show Rachel what it means to have a bad day. |
Tom Cooper is the main antagonist of the 2020 horror/thriller film Unhinged.
He is an unstable man who feels like he has nothing to lose, and goes on a rampage to teach a stranger what his idea of what a bad day is.
He was portrayed by Russell Crowe.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- He breaks into the house of his ex-wife and beats her and her new partner to death. He then has the house burned down.
- Even before the events of the film, it is heavily implied he was an abusive husband and that was the reason he got divorced.
- It can also be inferred that he killed several people before the events of the film because of his personality.
- He shows Rachel his idea of what a bad day is, by aggressively stalking and intimidating her in traffic multiple times, even though he is at fault for not proceeding through a green light.
- He runs over an innocent man who escorts Rachel out of the gas station, who then gets hit by another car and very likely dying.
- He steals Rachel's phone and meets with her friend and defense lawyer Andy in a diner, pretending to be her friend in order to manipulate him. As she reveals his true colors, he brutally murders Andy by smashing a mug on his nose, causing him to heavily bleed. He then slams his head on the table, punches him multiple times, chokes him with his tie, and finally stabs him to death with a butterknife. And none of the witnesses had stopped him either.
- He gives Rachel an ultimatum that somebody in her phone will die. She can choose one person, or it will be randomly determined.
- When Rachel chose herself, he said that it wasn't his purpose and forced her to choose one person again. However he did this because he wanted to mentally torture her.
- When Rachel chose Deborah Haskell, he instead went to the house of Fred, Rachel's brother, purposedly because he knew killing Haskell wouldn't hurt Rachel that much.
- He deliberately rams other drivers off the road, going as far as to kill them while recklessly chasing Rachel. This not only predates to road rage, but also committing numerous hit & runs against other drivers, along with committing a large number of traffic violations whilst chasing her throughout.
- He breaks into Rachel's brother's house, where he beats his fiancé Mary brutally, later, he shows himself taking Mary hostage in front of Fred, taking clear sadism in doing so, he then killed her with the knife Fred was holding and then "blames" Rachel for "causing" the death. He then has Fred tied to a chair, pours gasoline on him, and forces him to read a hateful message over the phone to Rachel, otherwise he would kill him by setting him on fire. However, even after Fred finished readind the message, a cop appeared to arrest Cooper, so he set Fred on fire so he could escape from the cop. Fortunately, Fred survived.
- He is hinted to have killed Rachel's neighbor Rosie off screen, as he is seen driving her car after fleeing her house and its likely that he stole her car.
- When Rachel and Kyle try to get a cop’s attention for help, he crashes into the cop’s car which results in it getting crushed by a cement truck and a multi-car pileup, killing the cop and possibly several other people.
- During one chase sequence with Rachel, he crashes into a random woman's car, killing her.
- He later crashes against a blue car, possibly killing the driver inside the car.
- He beats Rachel multiple times, along with her son Kyle.
- He attempts to strangle Kyle to death before he could do the same to Rachel.
- Despite his unstable behavior as well as possibly having breathing problems due to him consuming illegal drugs overtime, it does not show he has moral agency issues. This is because he never abandons his goals because of how vengeful he is.
- There is no sympathy to be given to him over losing his job and his wife leaving him, as his violent tendencies are way too disproportionate.
- While he showed a slight degree of mercy by initially apologizing to Rachel for holding her up in traffic, trying to reason with her, this is not mitigating as it is clearly self-serving rather than out of compassion, which is evident from his subsequent reaction to not receiving one back. Plus, it is ultimately nullified by his abusive behavior towards her, and he is only doing it because he expects an apology in return due to the hard time he is having, which hammers the point home that he is a very despicable man.
- While his death was horrible as he got stabbed in the eye by Rachel, it is not played for sympathy, as he completely deserved it for his actions.
- Even worse, as soon as he survives the stab which wasn't deep enough to kill him despite losing his eye, he didn't gave up and tried to kill Rachel and Kyle for the last time, only for Rachel to make the stab deeper against him, finally killing him.
Trivia[]
- To drive home the Man's Pure Evil status, Russell Crowe himself was at first mortified at the idea of playing such an evil character; he brings such gravitas and grimness in whatever scene he appears in, and real-life victims of stalking have been unable to watch the film due to it triggering their own PTSD.
External Links[]
- Tom Cooper on the Villains Wiki
- Tom Cooper on the Hate Sink Wiki