Falling Down by Joel Schumacher (1993)
8 March 2009I can’t believe this film did not do better because this is such a great film, and I have loved it since I saw it in Cinema 466 when it was shown to the class before it was released. I love it from the remake of 8 1/2 in the opening, to the man pushed just too far, doing all the stuff that you really could see yourself doing if you just got pushed a little too far. Beautifully shot, perfectly cast and acted, and really the ultimate Los Angeles film. This is such a good film, and no one knows about it. And seeing it in HD on HDNET I must say it looked amazing and deserves a great blu-ray edition, hopefully with some special features. Check this one out, it is really worth checking out.
William Foster (MIchael Douglas) is an angry man, sitting in his car trapped on a Los Angeles Freeway on a very hot day, and he finally loses it, and gets out his car, with the license plate D-FENS, and just walks off, saying he is going home. A LAPD Seargean Martin PRendergast (Robert Duvall, probably my mom’s favorite actor) helps a motorcycle cop push the car off the road. Foster walks to a convenience store owned by a Korean (Michael Paul Chan) and he wants to buy a coca cola, but needs change for the phone, and the Korean won’t give it to him unless he buys something, so he wants to pay 50¢ so he can use the phone, so he loses it when the Korean goes for his bat, and takes it and trashes the store, then when the owner agrees he pays 50¢ and goes out to call his ex wife Beth (Barbara Hershey) who has a restraining order against him, but he tells her he is coming home for their daughter Adele’s (Joey Hope Singer) birthday. Foster then keeps walking, even with a hole in his shoe, and ends up in a hispanic gang area, and when he gets attacked, he beats the hell out of them, and ends up with one of their butterfly knife, and continues on. The gang bangers then go to kill him with a bag full of guns, letting out the girlfriend Angie (Karina Arroyave) and doing a drive by, but they miss Foster, and crash, and he takes their guns which are in a gym bag, and walks off.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS….
It is Prendergast’s last day on the force, as he is retiring early for his crazy wife Amanda (Tuesday Weld) who has kept him of the streets since he was wounded, and is forcing him to quit and move to Arizona. The rest of the force just think he is scared, especially Captain Yardley (Raymond J. Barry). His ex partner Detective Sandra Torres (Roachel Ticotin) knows the truth though. And as the day goes on, Prendigast begins to see the pattern of this man in a white shirt, which no one else believes, especially those investigating the drive by.
Foster walks through a park and is bugged by a homeless guy trying to get money, and actually hands over his briefcase, which only has lunch in it, pissing the guy off. He then goes to a Whammy Burger to get breakfast, and even though it is 2 till 11, they are not serving, so he pulls out a submachine gun to have them make breakfast, but after seeing the reaction, he changes his mind and orders a burger, but it doesn’t look anything like the burger in the photo, so he is pissed. Torres investigates, and talks to Prendergast about it, and his theory that is building up.
Foster buys a snowglobe for his daughters birthday and goes into an Army surplus store to get some shoes. The owner (Frederic Forrest) is a bigoted, homophobic, Nazi lover, and he has been listening to a police scanner, so when Torres comes in, he hides Foster. He then tries to explain that he is like him, and is out to get the blacks, and when Forester freaks, he is going to shoot him, but Forester stabs him and then shoots him before moving on, but taking army fatigues and a shoulder mounted anti tank rocket.
Foster then runs into a road repair crew, where a kid helps him use the rocket after they admit there was nothing wrong with the road, and he blows up there gear.
Now Prendergast has figured it all out, especially with the dead Army Surplus owner, and he gets Torres to go with him to investigate, and they go back and find the D-FENS car, and figure out who it is, and decide to head to his mother’s (Louise Smith) house, where they find he has been recently divorced and unemployed, and they hear that the wife has called the westside cops 3 times and they have stopped coming.
Foster crossed a golf course, and shoots some old guys golf cart, and the guy has a heart attack, but can’t get his pills because the cart drives into the pond. Being followed by cops, he goes onto a rich estate, where he finds the groundskeepers family, who they think he is taking hostage, but he is just really losing it, and lets them go and heads for home.
When he gets there, Beth has run with Adele, and he goes in and watches home movies of the marriage, and realizes their favorite place is the pier, so he decides to go, but Prendergast and Torres show up, and go to either side of the house, though Prendergast forgot he had already given up his gun. He goes in and hears a shot, and runs and finds Torres wounded and down, he takes her gun and follows Foster to the pier.
Foster is confronting Beth and Adele, he wants them back, but he is acting crazy with a gun. Prendergast comes up and talks to him, and Beth manages to kick the gun away, and Prendergast pulls his gun and holds Foster as Beth and Adele run away.
Foster says he has a gun, and will draw it, an done of them will be killed. Prendergast tries to talk him out of it, but Foster doesn’t want to live in jail, so he draws, and Prednergast fires, and sees it is a squirt gun. Foster falls into the water off the pier and dies.
Prendergast has grown assertive over his crazy wife, and co-workers, and he publicly curses at his captain in front o the news media, and decides to stay a cop, and not retire to Arizona as he had planned to do just to make his wife happy.
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Really a great movie, and one that should have done better. Perhaps it was the time it came out, since the riots happened during the filming of the movie, and the wounds were too raw when the film came out, perhaps it was just a little too late coming out, or should have been help till a better time, because this is really a great film in every way.
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