• BY LESLIE CARDÉ | CONTRIBUTING WRITER
• JUL 29, 2019 – 12:59 PM

Homes in Chateau Estates of Kenner serve as a backdrop for a car crash in ‘Unhinged,’ a movie starring Russell Crowe. The crew breaks down to set up for another angle during the filming Monday, July 29, 2019.

PHOTO BY DINAH ROGERS

The crew breaks down to set up for another angle during the filming of a car crash for the movie Unhinged with Russell Crowe in Kenner, Monday, July 29, 2019.

PHOTO BY DINAH ROGERS

Movie trucks line Chateau Magdelaine Drive during the filming of a car crash for the movie Unhinged with Russell Crowe in Kenner, Monday, July 29, 2019.

PHOTO BY DINAH ROGERS

A dummy is removed from the set during the filming of a car crash for the movie Unhinged with Russell Crowe in Kenner, Monday, July 29, 2019.

Residents of the normally placid Chateau Estates subdivision in Kenner have awakened the past few weeks to explosions and car chases as the movie “Unhinged,” starring Russell Crowe, is filmed along their manicured cul-de-sacs. The road-rage thriller is taping frantic pursuit scenes in the subdivision and on the Crescent City Connection through August.

In a scene shot Monday, special effects personnel flipped a van inside Chateau Estates as Crowe’s character relentlessly chased down his victim, a mother played by Caren Pistorius, who accidentally honks her horn and inspires in the man a relentless desire for revenge.

Although Crowe can’t reveal further plot details, he has praised his co-star Pistorius for really inhabiting the character she’s playing in “Unhinged.”

Director Derrick Borte “went through a long casting process that culminated in an old-school audition with both of us in the room,” said Crowe in a recent phone interview. “(Pistorius) claimed that audition in a definitive way. I know she’s been working a long time and has some great credits, but casting Caren still feels like we’ve made a discovery, and that’s exciting.”

The cast and crew of the Los Angeles-based Solstice Studios production are headquartered in Kenner, with offices set up in the former Macy’s department store at the Esplanade Mall. If Kenner Mayor Ben Zahn has his way, that empty store will eventually become Kenner’s new City Hall, but in the near term, contributing to Hollywood South works well.

“It’s a long process to move City Hall,” said Zahn. “In the meantime, we are thrilled to have a major feature film base its operation here in Kenner.”

Solstice Studios is shooting all over Kenner: at Franny’s diner, at a home in Chateau Estates and on Chateau Boulevard.

The special effects personnel even recently blew the front door off a house in Woodlake Estates as part of the action-packed storyline.

And, in New Orleans, Hayne Boulevard is serving as a highway, while Ursuline Academy shows up prominently in the mix of locations. The screenplay’s author, Carl Ellsworth, (“Disturbia”), also set a violent car chase on the Crescent City Connection.

“Shutting down the entire bridge to the west bank for daytime shoots was impossible…but we were able to obtain use of the HOV lane,”  said location manager F. Stanley Pearse.

There are always challenges for Pearse, whose experience goes back decades to films like “Lethal Weapon 4,” “Princess Diaries,” “Green Mile” and “Twister.” The recent stormy New Orleans weather has been a factor.

“When lightning strikes, we turn off the generators and wait, if it looks like it might blow over, but we’ve learned to wet down every location so that when it rains the streets still look the same, and we have continuity in the film,” Pearse said.

Meanwhile Zahn has made sure Kenner puts its best foot forward.

“Once I see the locations, I’ll order a tree trimmed, a curb fixed, or even a sculpture removed. Our residents understand why we’re trying to get this to the next level. It’s important for our economy. And, hey, it adds a bit of glitz. Suddenly our residents are 50 feet away from an Academy Award-winning actor in their midst. It’s exciting.”

“Unhinged” begins with an ordinary traffic scene, until Pistorius inadvertently leans on her horn at the wrong time, angering the worst guy possible. What Crowe’s character subsequently inflicts upon her and everyone she knows goes well beyond road rage.

For Academy Award winner and perennially nominated Crowe, playing complicated characters is his stock-in-trade.

Crowe came into most people’s consciousness as an anguished whistleblower in “The Insider,” for which he was Oscar-nominated. One year later came his seminal role as the complex “Gladiator,” which won him that Oscar. That was followed quickly by his portrayal of real-life Nobel Laureate John Nash, who was diagnosed in the prime of his life with paranoid schizophrenia, in “A Beautiful Mind.” Crowe can be seen currently on Showtime’s limited series “The Loudest Voice” in an uncanny portrayal of controversial former Chairman and CEO of Fox News, Roger Ailes.

“Unhinged” is scheduled for a summer 2020 release.

Contact Leslie Cardé at lacarde@aol.com.