Falling Down

Falling Down (1993)
Directed by: Joel Schumacher

Starring: Michael Douglas, Robert DuVall

Plot: William (D-FENS) just wants to get home to see his daughter on her birthday. Unfortunately, nothing seems to be going right for him. First there's the traffic jam, then the unhelpful Korean shopkeeper who "doesn't give change". D-FENS begins to crack and starts to fight back against the every day "injustices" he encounters on his journey home. The film has a story running in parallel about a desk-bound cop who is about to retire. He's retiring for his wife's sake, and obviously isn't happy about it. The cop tracks down D-FENS and in the final scene..... Taken from www.imdb.com

Latino Gangbanger dropped something! D-Fens found an UZI! *Triumphant music* Would D-Fens like to equip UZI?

It's mid-day in Los Angeles, traffic is slowed to a halt due to road construction and this is where we meet our hero D-Fens (Michael Douglas, technically his name is William but I'll call him D-Fens because it's the only name we know him as for a while and it makes him sound like a rapper.)

The problem is, D-Fens has the temper of Dirty Harry on a really really bad day and a constant scowl that sticks with him through the whole movie. So fed up he gets out of his car and makes a beeline across the city to get to his daughter's birthday part.

Along the way he adopts a system of survival normally confined to RPGs. So here without further adieu is the "Falling Down" RPG.

>>D-Fens enters store
>>Korean shopkeeper tries to charge 85 cents for a can of coca cola
>>D-Fens uses passive aggressive racism! It's not very affective.
>>Korean shopkeeper uses baseball bat! But it missed...
>>D-Fens overpowers Korean shopkeeper
>>Korean Shopkeeper has fainted
>>D-Fens found a baseball bat!
>>Does D-Fens want to equip baseball bat?

I tell you, it would sell millions. So anyway he does this and the ironic thing is throughout the course of the movie, he never actually uses the same weapon twice.

Anyhow, Detective Pendergast (Robert DuVall), who has one of the bitchiest wives in cinematic history, is there in the traffic jam and soon becomes wrapped up in the trail of chaos D-Fens leaves behind him as he serves to protect the world from gang bangers, burger employees, telephone booths, and skinhead army/navy store owners.

Does anybody ever actually threaten somebody with a knife like this?

Okay you already know what performances I'm going to point out to here. Robert DuVall is as always wonderful as the aging detective who's being forced into early retirement by his bitchy needy psycho wife.

Michael Douglas is the true star here as D-Fens who starts out as some sort of urban hero at first, writing small wrongs and doing what honestly a lot of us would like to do. But at one point in the story we realize that D-Fens is actually just fucking crazy. The man has clearly had a nervous breakdown and needs help. He goes from awesome to scary in no time and manages to be a very sad and tragic figure. Even as he's exacting revenge on all those who have done him wrong he seems tired and unsure of himself, not sure where he's going or what he's doing.

Man, Michael Douglas really likes pointing guns at things.

The story is a well put together yarn of a regular man that's just been pushed to the edge and finally snapped. He's both a hero and a villain and more tragic than anything. At one point toward the end Douglas says "I'm the bad guy? When did that happen?" and indeed you do wonder.

Robert Duvall's character contrasts Douglas' nicely, as a man put into a similar position. Threatened of being swallowed up and forgotten himself, you do really feel that the only thing separating Detective Pendergast and D-Fens is one bad day.

The story comes together nicely at the end and it ends in the best way it possibly could. It's a beautiful social commentary that says a lot about the human condition.

One of the things I really enjoyed were the bits of black humor sprinkled in, some of Douglas' lines are hilarious and moments when he asks a burger joint at gunpoint why the food looks so much better in pictures than in reality and the camera pans to the crowd of frightened onlookers as a small child slowly and warily raises his hand.

Stare at this picture and tell me the first words that pop into your head aren't "French fried potaters"

"Falling Down" is a much passed over classic of the 90s. One that got critical acclaim but was overlooked by most people. It is a great movie and you owe it to yourself to see it.

I give "Falling Down" a 5 out of 5. Buy it.