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Rating:  - Gotta love it.
I'm not a white collar worker but man can I indentify:) Great movie, seen it more times than I can count.
Rating:  - An interesting movie with a protagonist we can identify with.
I've always found this to be an intriguing movie, and though it is no deep and profound commentary on our culture and behaviors, it does, nonetheless, touch on an issue of real importance in our society: the issue of social interaction between strangers, and how it can go horribly wrong. Bill Foster, the main character, is clearly presented in this movie as the bad guy. He's emotionally unstable, demonstrably capable of extreme violence, and judging by his relationships with his ex-wife and his mother, not completely in touch with reality. Nevertheless, as so many other reviewers here have noted, despite the fact of his bad guy status, one can't help but feel sympathetic with him. There's really no mystery to this; we've all been faced with rude store clerks, snotty fast food cashiers, supercilious rich people, and so forth. Some of us have even been face to face with violent, dangerous punks. And probably all of us have fantasized about punching the smug, sneering face of the arrogant jerk in front of us in such situations. Bill Foster is a sympathetic character because even though he overreacts violently (although I wouldn't call his response to the gang thugs, or the neo-nazi overreaction, as his life was truly threatened in those cases), in each case he IS genuinely provoked. Not one of the strangers he confronts thoughout the course of the movie would have had anything to fear from him if they had simply treated him courteously and respectfully.
This movie ought to be taken as just as much a warning about the potential consequences of certain behavior (in this case, rudeness) as another of Michael Douglas' movies, "Fatal Attraction" was about adultery. It's never a bad idea to treat others with the same respect and courtesy you would want for yourself. You never know what the person in front of you at any given moment is going through, or what that person may be capable of. And although this is a movie, a work of fiction, we've all read about violent road rage encounters, and other incidents arising from seemingly the most trivial provocation. Just the other day I read about someone shooting someone in line at a convenience store because the person ahead of him was taking too long to make a purchase, and responded rudely when urged to speed things up. Don't go around being rude to people. The stranger you snap peevishly at may just become angry enough to knock your block off. And quite aside from fear of what others might do if you irritate them, being polite is simply the right thing to do. And it costs you nothing, so why not just be polite to people?
In this movie, Bill Foster throws off the restraint most of use every day when faced with such provocations and irritations, and soon finds himself the object of a manhunt by the police. Even though he self-destructs in the end, and even though we are presented (in the form of Detective Prendergast) with a character who manages to cope with just as much stress and bad human behavior as Foster, we still feel a twinge of sympathy for Foster, right to the very end.
Rating:  - Douglas on top form
This is easily Michael Douglas's best ever acting performance. In Falling Down he is a man on the very edge of a complete breakdown. The problem is that anybody who upsets him is likely to come off badly.
At the start of the film we see 'D-Fens' (Douglas) in his car in a non-moving traffic jam. Its a boiling hot day, his air-conditionaing has packed up and everything is annoying him. Eventually he just walks away and leaves the car saying hes going home. Home it turns out is where his estranged wife and daughter live. To get there he has to walk miles and its his journey home that the core of the film revolves around. The set-pieces in this film are very well done. In particular his visit to a store to buy a pair of hiking boots is brilliantly done. Robert Duvall plays the Policeman (who is retiring that day) who realises that De-Fens is very dangerous indeed. Duvall as always is excellent and in an under-stated way matches Douglas's very edgy performance.
The film isn't without its faults. The message that D-Fens is cracking up is hammered home over and over, uneccessarily in my view. We can see this from D-Fens actions, so the frequent shots of people carrying placards emphasing this point weren't needed. However overall this is a well directed and very well written film.
Rating: - Life vs Foster
William Foster is pretty much your average Joe with a nowhere job doing nothing much with life. "Falling Down" takes you into his world during the one day that he decides to fight back against life's trials. A traffic jam seems to be the trigger for what is a rollercoaster ride through the city, all the while Detective Prendergast is trying to track him down on his own last day before retirement.
This is a seriously powerful look at life just wearing someone down, and their explosion against it. I saw it as a comment on the soul-destroying, monotonous lives that a lot of people have, and the yearning for a reality that could never be. Foster seemed to live in an idealised past that was no more.
Michael Douglas is intense as William Foster, putting in a gritty and raw portrayal of a man fighting against the very world he lives in. While there are some humourous moments, mostly it is a shocking walk through the worst day of a man's life.
Not a film to go "Wow! That was cool!" about, "Falling Down" is a fantastic movie with real depth. I would recommend it to anyone who just felt like choking the living **** out of some smarmy shop assistant. One might be surprised at how relatable Foster is.
Rating: - loss
A man pushed to the edge. But the way he finds a temporary reprieve from his situation...............is a roller coaster ride in itself. Michael Douglas steps out of his clean cut, do everything right image and what he does will leave you breathless...................
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