Falling Down (1993)

Rob August 10, 2015

★ 5.5/10

Having just watched this movie I can say that I enjoyed it, not overly so. Its not really a tale of urban reality more that the everyday annoyances that we do nothing about and this guy turns them into a personal insult. Its starts normally enough, stuck in traffic, beep noises and drilling on a hot day, his AC is broken, the window is broken. Instead of just shrugging it off with that Monday feeling he just abandons his car and goes for a walk, to start with its a shop owner with overpriced drinks that gets his shop smashed up a bit, later only when threatened with violence himself does he defend himself against 2 gang members. This is where things start to suddenly go weird, the gang members drive round and stumble across him somehow, (I'm British but I think LA is a little too big for that) then spray bullets in a drive by 20ft away and miss him completely but hit everyone around him …

vylmen December 30, 2024

★ 9/10

## Not about the guy This movie isn't about the main character, William 'D-Fens' Foster. He does some crazy things and I guess that what some people remember, but if you really watch the movie you see that it puts society's erosion of the U.S. "normal guy" on display. People who "do everything right": get a degree, marry, make babies, work for a corporation. They feel disillusioned, cheated out of the promise of the American dream. Class divides, racism, toxic masculinity, coroporate greed, urban decay, breakdown of interpersonal connections and flat, sloppy hamburgers that look nothing like the picture on the menu. They are all present in Joel Schumacher's chronicle of the late 80's and early 90's. Even the inaction of police under the strain of declining budgets. His ex-wife that dodged a bullet by getting out before D-Fens got violent, is almost ridiculed for being oversensi…