Customer Reviews

Falling Down (Widescreen/Full Screen)

5 star:		(80)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Falling Down (1993)
Crime, Drama, Thriller, 113 minutes
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Starring Michael Douglas, Robert Duvall and Barbara Hershey

Here's a movie that has never received the credit it deserves. It opens with William Foster (Douglas) stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway. It's a hot day and he's starting to become agitated. Eventually he cracks and just abandons the car. The first part of the story shows us a variety of encounters which don't improve his mood.

He enters a convenience store to get change for the phone, but the insists that he buys something first. The price of soda is too high so Foster questions it. When the owner produces a baseball bat, Foster decides that the line has been crossed. He snatches the bat and smashes up part of the store. His frustration increases when a couple of gang members demand his briefcase as a toll for trespassing on their turf. They don't realize that he has a bat.

Friends of the gang members decide to teach Foster a lesson, but their plans go awry and he's suddenly in possession of an automatic weapon. You can see how simple the plot is up to this point. When he tries to buy something from the breakfast menu at a burger restaurant, he's told that he's too late. He missed the deadline by a minute, but the person serving him won't budge. Foster pulls a weapon and insists. When he receives the meal, he looks at it in disgust. It doesn't look anything like the picture on the wall.

In Foster's mind, he's not doing anything wrong. In fact, we can probably sympathize with him at the start of the movie. How would you react in those situations? I'm usually very laid back, but when someone wrongs me, something inside me rears up. Foster reacts in a believable way.

The clever thing about the movie is that it gradually increases the severity of the situations. At what point do Foster's actions switch from being justified or understandable to being over the top? Where do you draw the line?

I won't reveal how far Foster goes, but it's interesting to see how he thinks. We learn something about his life that makes this particular day something special. When you see what that is, it's easy to see why he started down the path he chose. Michael Douglas delivers one of his best performances as Foster and is ably supported by Robert Duvall who plays a cop that tries to track Foster down. The tension slowly increases throughout the movie in an intelligent way and it's always a compelling story.

Falling Down is one of those stories that split my sympathies with every scene. The film begins by portraying the sensation of a very hot Los Angeles day where everyone has reached their limits and many have surpassed it. The only real good guys in the story are Prendergast and Sandra but I couldn't help but sympathize with Bill Foster's plight as he desperately tried to be there for his daughter's birthday. This is a well written, well cast, and well acted story that held my interest to the very end. It's a movie that makes it very difficult to take a pause for a bathroom break because you really want to see what goes down next.

Very satisfied... was posted as used `like new' and it is > like new. Shipping was quick ... no complains... good Buy!
Thanks

Excellent entertainment - comedic and poignant. Good performance by Douglas. Glimpse into the stress of modern-day America and the mental challenges that some people and their families face.

wow.this movie blew me away.it was relevant then,and it's even more
relevant today.Michael Douglas gives a searing performance as an
ordinary man who has a really bad day,and explodes under the
pressure.his character is someone anyone who lives in the big city can
relate to and feel empathy for.not only does the film examine what
happens when an ordinary is pushed past the breaking limit,it also
examines the ramification of that person's action and the effect on
that person and others.it also shows how silly we have gotten as a
society,with all of our ridiculous ways of doing business.it's almost
as if things are set up deliberately for someone to lose control.Joel
Schumacker(Phonebooth)directed this movie and although i'm not
generally a fan,he impressed me here.i also liked the writing and the
dialogue.the supporting cast are also good,but this is Douglas's
show.to,me this is a career making performance.a masterpiece,if i've
ever seen one. 5/5

'Falling Down' is movie about a man who finally snaps because he feels his society, family, and friends have cheated him. He goes on a rampage across Los Angeles only to find that it doesn't solve anything. A fascinating idea, but it wasn't executed that well. Might be worth watching though.

As we journey with Michael Douglas in this excellent film, cant' we all identify with his frustration and anger? 85 cents for a can of soda? A store that won't give you change unless you buy something? Panhandlers looking for food, money and making you feel you owe it to them? People who think gays, blacks and other minorities are worthless? A fast food place that won't serve you breakfast even when they have tons of left overs they'll have to throw out? Wealthy old farts who think they own the golf course they pay membership in?
Yes, indeed, one can see why Douglas is so mad...it's just that his way of dealing with it is not one that we all should take.
Joel Schumacher's direction is right on, I think; people tend to like to pan Schumacher, when he has actually given us some vastly entertaining films. He knows what the audience wants and he knows that in FALLING DOWN, there can be no happy endings, so let's just enjoy Douglas getting revenge on people we'll never get a chance to!
Douglas is superb in the role, one of his best performances. Robert Duvall is very good in his role of the almost retired cop; Tuesday Weld is dazzling in her brief role as Duvall's wife; Rachel Ticotin does well in her role as Duvall's partner; John Diehl is very effective in his very brief role as the guy at the pool who offers to go with Douglas in order to protect his wife and child; and Barbara Hershey does wonders as Douglas' ex-wife.
Manipulative thought it may be, FALLING DOWN makes a statement, and makes one wonder what we would do if we snapped like Douglas!!!

Joel Schumacher, the director best known for putting nipples on the Batsuit, and thus ruining a perfectly good franchise, is an expert at taking something good and turning it into trash. He is, in fact, the prime example of a moviemaker who could've been, but isn't ... in all aspects of the phrase.

"Falling Down" could've been an gripping drama with tons of social commentary tossed in. And for more than half of the film, Schumacher, with the help of an incredible performance by Michael Douglas, achieves this. Douglas's comments on the price of a can of soda reflect the frustration of the poor in rising inflation. His attack on the golf course, again, is a fist in the air for the needy in the United States. Not until Schumacher has Douglas shoot apart a telephone booth for the sake of shooting something to shreds does he lose the integrity of a good film. He is now out for bang and bucks, and from there, the whole movie goes somewhat downhill.

Yet not entirely. Michael Douglas still keeps this film afloat. His performance, as mentioned before, is one of the actor's greatest, and will be remembered alongside his reptilian turn in "Wall Street." Robert Duvall is great as the cop on the brink of retirement - a film cliche, but workable here - and when the pair finally meet, the sparks fly.

Yet in the meantime, Douglas's "comments" on society become more vague, or else they strike the viewer on the head with their obviousness. To mention the golf course scene again - Schumacher could've executed the comment beautifully without having Douglas burst into preachy prose. Subtlety is a skill Hollywood hasn't possessed since the birth of special effects. Everything is a hammer over the head. Moviemakers have no faith in their audience. They think we're stupid.

While "Falling Down" is a vastly entertaining film that has a great re-watch value, it still leaves you feeling dissatisfied in the end. You want something more. And that something is exactly what Schumacher, as long as he keeps making films, cannot give you.

Here's the story of a simple man (played very well by Michael Douglas) who's life is crumbling around him. He's been layed-off for months now from the Defense Industry, a job he loved so much that he had his license plate personalized with the letters "D FENS". His marraige is over. He's been reduced to living with his mother, and is too ashamed to tell anyone that he's unemployed. He's been looking for work elsewhere but is "no longer economically viable", as you'll find out.

He snaps and leaves his car sitting in a traffic jam on one of L.A.'s freeways. In the next 8hrs he goes from being a transparent man to a heavily-armed, camoflage-wearing vigilante who deals a heavy hand to anyone who gets in his way. And in the streets of L.A., it's not hard to find someone who wants to get in your way.

Robert Duvall plays an L.A. Robbery Detective who just happens to be working his last day before retirement. He's chastised for having taken a desk job after a shooting incident, at the insistence of his wife (the only character in this movie I couldn't stand). And he realizes most of his fellow cops won't miss him for long when he retires. But, he's the only cop who links several violent crimes on that day to the vigilante defense worker. He further redeems himself by tracking down and stopping the vigilante. At the same time, he rescues his boys from his wife's purse and takes a stand for once in his life.

You'll find yourself cheering for the vigilante as he leaves death and destruction in his wake. And at the same time, you can't help but feel sorry for him because his life is falling apart, hence the film's appropriately-named title, "Falling Down". I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. 4+ stars.

If you liked this Joel Schumacher movie, I recommend one of his newest films, "Phone Booth".

I reviewed this movie 5 years ago for VHS and had not visited LA at that time. 5 years and 2 visits hence, I felt the need to review this feature again for DVD. Michael Douglas(as Bill "D-FENS" Foster)is a man who paid his dues and bought into the American Dream in a place once considered the Promised Land- Los Angeles, CA. It's definitely not the LA of old, the magical place where the weather is warm and the skies are blue. It is not difficult to sympathize with Bill as he plugs on through a dirty urban wasteland with one thought in his bewildered mind...to see his daughter, his hope for the future. It is a lesson for us all to be a little more civilized and a little more empathetic to the ones who find it harder to adapt...Otherwise there will be more Bill Fosters...And far more lethal than he was.

Robert Duvall (as Officer Prendergast) is a man who but for the grace of a Higher Power could have ended up a casualty like Bill. He understands the life of quiet frustration that Bill has had to lead, yet he tries with all his might to adapt to the misfortune that is 1990s' Los Angeles. Prendergast realizes that he must NOT be seduced into the abyss of savagery that has subsumed Bill. FALLING DOWN is the classic story of a black-and-white moralist who cannot distinguish the various shades of gray that our world has become. In my opinion the most important message of this movie is how two men with very similar backgrounds deal with the challenges of urban life, whether in L.A., NYC or any other metropolis. THIS is what separates the "good guy" from the "bad guy" in modern society and asks YOU--the viewer--this question: Are you the problem or the solution?