Falling Down
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| Falling Down | |
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 Falling Down |
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| Directed by | Joel Schumacher |
| Produced by | Timothy Harris Arnold Kopelson Herschel Weingrod |
| Written by | Ebbe Roe Smith |
| Starring | Michael Douglas Robert Duvall Barbara Hershey Rachel Ticotin Frederic Forrest Tuesday Weld |
| Music by | James Newton Howard |
| Cinematography | Andrzej Bartkowiak |
| Editing by | Paul Hirsch |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | February 26, 1993 (USA) |
| Running time | 113 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $25 million |
| IMDb profile | |
Falling Down is a 1993 film directed by Joel Schumacher about the character William "Bill" Foster (played by Michael Douglas) also known as "D-Fens" (named for his license plate), an engineer, attempting to "go home" for his daughter's birthday after abandoning his car in traffic on the hottest day of the year. As he passes through the city of Los Angeles, California on foot he finds himself alienated, disgusted and angered by what he experiences as he is accosted, overcharged and rejected. He becomes a vigilante as he gradually begins to accumulate weaponry and starts to force people out of his way.
The title of the film, referring to Foster's mental collapse, is taken from the title of the nursery rhyme London Bridge is Falling Down: Detective Martin Prendergast's wife's insists throughout the movie that she and her husband retire to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where the old London Bridge was moved; a snowglobe purchased by Foster as a gift for his daughter also plays the tune of the song.
As the movie was being filmed, the massive 1992 Los Angeles riots (also known as the Rodney King riots) broke out, bringing to light many of the issues of racial, social and economic tensions portrayed in the film.
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[edit] Plot
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- Taglines
- A Tale of Urban Reality.
The adventures of an ordinary man at war with the everyday world.
The film traces the stories of two men; nerdy, out-of-work defense engineer William "Bill" Foster (played by Michael Douglas) and over-the-hill LAPD Detective Martin Prendergast (Robert Duvall) on an especially hot day in Los Angeles. Foster (whose name is only mentioned once in the entire film and who is listed in the end credits only as "D-Fens," a reference to his car's vanity license plate) has been recently divorced, laid off from his job, and is now trapped in a traffic jam full of rude motorists. After his car's air conditioning fails, he abandons the vehicle and begins walking across the city toward the district of Venice and the home of his ex-wife (Barbara Hershey). As he progresses, his behavior toward other city residents becomes increasingly violent and erratic, as he gathers to himself an array of weapons with which to inflict vigilante retribution for what he perceives as injustices and personal slights.
He starts by assaulting a Korean store owner (Michael Paul Chan), criticizing him for charging exorbitant prices and refusing to make change without purchasing a Coca-Cola (Foster requires the change to make a phone call to his wife), and when the owner attempts to defend himself with a baseball bat, Foster takes it from him, destroys his merchandise with it, pays what he feels is a fair price for the Coke and leaves.
Shortly after, Foster is confronted by two Hispanic gang members who pull a knife and demand that he pay them a "toll" for passing through their "territory." Foster drives them away with the bat and picks up the butterfly knife dropped by one of the gang members, finding its design fascinating. The same gang members are vengeful and later track down Foster, intending to kill him in a drive-by shooting. The gang opens fire from their car with automatic weapons, shooting several innocent bystanders, but they fail to hit Foster and by misfortune crash their car down the street. Foster then acquires their duffel bag of firearms. Foster takes a couple minutes to mock one of the Hispanic gang-members, who is conscious but clearly injured from the accident, and then shoots him in the leg with an Uzi SMG before walking off.
Next, Foster enters a fast food restaurant called Whammyburger and politely attempts to order from the breakfast menu. However, the restaurant's cashier and manager refuse to serve him breakfast (it is two minutes past the deadline for the change to lunch). After an increasingly tense argument with the manager, Foster becomes angry and pulls a TEC-9 out of the bag of weapons, accidentally firing a couple of shots into the ceiling. Apologetic about the shots, he waits for the employees to make him his breakfast meal, but then resolves to order from the lunch menu after all, having now found the food he saw other customers eating appetizing. When he receives his meal, he again becomes angry, this time over the difference between the thick, generous hamburgers pictured in the in-store advertising and the comparatively minuscule actual product, which he calls a "sorry, miserable, squashed thing". The scene ends quickly after this.
During his walk, Foster buys a snowglobe as a birthday present for his daughter. He then stops in an army/navy surplus store to find a replacement for his shoes, one of which has a hole worn through the bottom. In the store, the owner (Frederic Forrest) helpfully presents Foster his choice of "hiking boots", but is soon revealed to be homophobic as he begins to harass two gay men browsing the store. Shortly after he forces the two gay men out of the store, Detective Sandra Torres (Rachel Ticotin) comes inside and asks him if he has seen a person matching Foster's description. The owner denies having seen Foster and hides him in the dressing room, where Foster has been trying his boots on. After Detective Torres leaves, the store owner locks the front door and takes Foster to his "private stash" in the back of the shop, presenting himself as Foster's friend. The store owner is then revealed to be a Neo-Nazi, as the room is full of Nazi paraphernalia. He gleefully shows Foster an empty can of "actually used" Zyklon B, impressed by the thought of how many Jews the can could have murdered, and tries to give him an M72 Light Anti-Tank Weapon as a present, believing himself and Foster to be on the same side. He refers to a police radio scanner he has been listening to, which mentioned the shooting in the Whammyburger and other such incidents throughout the predominantly Hispanic neighborhood.
After Foster lashes out and calls the confused Neo-Nazi a "sick asshole", the Neo-Nazi pulls a gun on him and forces him against a counter. While going through Foster's bag of weapons, the Neo-Nazi finds the snowglobe and promptly destroys it (to Foster's dismay), calling it "faggot shit". When the Neo-Nazi tries to handcuff Foster, Foster stabs him in the left shoulder with the butterfly knife and proceeds to kill the man execution style with the Neo-Nazi's Taurus PT92. Afterwards, Foster trades his short-sleeved shirt and tie for army fatigues and takes the M72 Light Anti-tank Weapon from the store, which he soon uses to terrorize a road repair crew, accusing them of conducting unnecessary repairs (and snarling traffic) solely to justify their inflated budget.
Prendergast, on his last day before retirement, also has a troubled, frustrating life. He must deal with a domineering, sometimes hysterical, wife (Tuesday Weld) and mocking from his co-workers, with the exception of his former partner, Detective Sandra Torres.
With Torres, Prendergast traces Foster's movements and rushes to intercept him before he can reach his ex-wife's house. Foster's ex-wife has a restraining order against him and has already called police several times, panicked because Foster has repeatedly and menacingly called her, announcing his plan to attend their young daughter's birthday party.
Foster proceeds to cut through a golf course, angering an older, rich, cigar-smoking golfer who complains that Foster is walking on "his golf course." Despite Foster being directly in his way, the old man takes his stroke anyway, nearly hitting Foster with his golf ball. Foster responds by berating the man, telling him how the land taken up by the golf course should be open to children, families, and the general public. He then shoots the old man's golf cart with a sawed-off Remington 870 shotgun, causing it to roll downhill into a water hazard. At this point the old golfer has a heart attack, begs Foster for his heart medication and when Foster asks where the pills are he indicates that they were in the cart. Foster grins at the man and remarks on how he is going to die wearing a stupid-looking hat. Foster then has to climb over a wall topped with barbed wire, on which he cuts his hand.
He arrives on the other side to find an enormous mansion right in the middle of LA. He becomes enraged at the disparity of wealth, and when he spots a man near the pool in the back yard, he begins shouting at him. The man states that he does not own the property, but works for the owner, who is out of town and allowing his employees to use his house for recreational purposes. As the police rush through the streets, responding to Foster's various mayhem, Foster resolves to hide with the man and his family in the back patio of the lush and walled-in yard. Foster learns that the owner became wealthy performing cosmetic surgery, causing Foster to remark that he must have picked the wrong line of work for himself. He begins telling the family of his troubles, of how he once worked as an engineer for a defense contractor to the United States government, designing and building missile systems, but was laid off when the Cold War ended. He complains that men and women who serve and defend their country are shafted while rich pigs like the owner of the property prosper by preying on people's insecurities. He reveals that he feels betrayed and lied to by his country and everyone in his life, having studied hard only to be disposed of as obsolete, and he claims to have been deemed "over-educated and under-skilled" because of his lifetime of hard work and study. When Foster sees blood on the man's daughter's hand, he assumes he has hurt the daughter and begins to apologize profusely, but the man reminds him that the blood is merely that of Foster's own hand wound. The man then insists that if Foster wants a hostage, Foster should take himself, rather than his wife or daughter. Foster becomes furious that the man assumes he is some kind of maniac intent on harming people and leaves them and the house to continue on his own.
When Foster arrives finally at his wife's house, she has already fled with their daughter. He decides to stay there anyway, not knowing where she might have gone. He waits in the living room and decides to watch a home movie that was made during their marriage. In it, he and his then-wife enjoy a summer day much like the present day, on the pier by the beach with their daughter. As he watches the video, however, he realizes that he had been stressing his family as well; he causes his infant daughter to cry and his wife to become angry with him. As he watches, he marvels at a "toy" water-pistol bought as a present for his young daughter on her birthday, and considers the culture of violence which makes a mockery of the very reality he carries in his duffel bag. Suddenly, while watching, he realizes that his wife would probably have fled to the pier, which is stated in the home video to be one of the places she feels safest. He rushes there just as Prendergast arrives. Torres, who is with Prendergast, insists that she go in through the back door to confront Foster, while Prendergast himself remain out front to back her up (a theme throughout the film is the danger police officers must put themselves in to defend others, exemplified by Prendergast's wish not to be shot or otherwise killed during his last day on the job). As she heads around back, Foster shoots her in the stomach with a pistol and takes off, with Prendergast calling an ambulance before pursuing Foster.
At the pier, Prendergast dismisses Foster's complaints about being deceived and mistreated by society, however legitimate, as no excuse for terrorizing people. Prendergast positions himself between Foster and his daughter and ex-wife, and insists that Foster must give himself up to the police who are just arriving with the ambulance. Foster looks puzzled by this request, and responds with "I'm the bad guy? How did that happen?" Finally resolving himself to the role, Foster begins insisting that he and Prendergast engage in a cowboy-style showdown, stating that it would be poetic. Prendergast begs him to reconsider. However, Foster, having left the duffel bag at his ex-wife's home, draws his daughter's water pistol on Prendergast, causing Prendergast to reflexively shoot and kill him, thus allowing Foster's life insurance to go to his wife and daughter—whereas taking his own life would not have resulted in this outcome. As Foster is shot and killed, a scene of the pier is shown, with Foster literally 'falling down' into the sea (In reference to the title, and with reference to what has happened to his life). Shortly after, Prendergast (whose behavior has also become harsher over the course of the film, changing him from a mild submissive man to one who asserts himself with his wife and punches an insulting co-worker) publicly curses his overbearing and two-faced supervisor ("Fuck you, Captain Yardley. Fuck you very much.") in front of the media, while Officer Torres is taken away on a stretcher. The film ends with Prendergast realizing that he ultimately still wants to be a police officer, but had only lost touch with his passion due to his wife's hatred for the job, and so he decides not to retire yet. The camera then moves back into Foster's ex-wife's house, where the home video is still playing, ominously showing what could have been for Foster, living out a 'normal' life, but ultimately, did not happen.
[edit] Reception
Roger Ebert, who gave the film a positive review at the time of its release, stated of William "D-Fens" Foster:
"What is fascinating about the Douglas character, as written and played, is the core of sadness in his soul. Yes, by the time we meet him, he has gone over the edge. But there is no exhilaration in his rampage, no release. He seems weary and confused, and in his actions he unconsciously follows scripts that he may have learned from the movies, or on the news, where other frustrated misfits vent their rage on innocent bystanders."
[edit] Primary cast
- Michael Douglas - William "Bill" Foster/D-Fens
- Robert Duvall - Detective Martin Prendergast
- Barbara Hershey - Elizabeth "Beth" Travino
- Tuesday Weld - Amanda Prendergast
- Rachel Ticotin - Detective Sandra Torres
- Frederic Forrest - Nick, Army Surplus Store Owner
- Raymond J. Barry - Captain Yardley
[edit] Awards and nominations
- 1993 Camerimage, Nominated for the Golden Frog
- 1993 Cannes Film Festival, Nominated for the Palme d'Or
- 1994 Edgar Award, Won for Best Motion Picture Screenplay (Ebbe Roe Smith)
[edit] Controversy
Many Korean-Americans were upset about the portrayl of Korean shop keepers in the film. The negative assumption that Korean stores overcharge customers and when handing money/items to the customer never touch the hand of the customer (ie - place change on counter as in the film) where portrayed by Koreans as racist. Some in the Korean community demanded the film remove or redo the scenes in the store. This did not happen.
[edit] Cultural references
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- In promotional material for their album Reise, Reise, the German band Rammstein used poses inspired by the poster for this film.
- The English heavy metal band Iron Maiden used this film as inspiration for a song named Man on the Edge.
- The French rapper Disiz la Peste used this film as inspiration for a song named J'pète les plombs.
- 2007 the American rock band Atreyu made a song titled Falling Down on their album Lead Sails Paper Anchor.
- The film is heavily sampled on Front Line Assembly's 1994 album Millenium.
- The metalcore band Silent Civilian has a song on their 2006 album "Rebirth Of The Temple" titled "Falling Down", inspired directly by the movie.
- Reeves and Mortimer's quiz show "Shooting Stars" paid homage with a sketch featuring Vic Reeves as Douglas' character.
[edit] External links
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