Exclusive: As Falling Down turns 30, Michael Douglas reflects on one of his most controversial roles
In an exclusive interview, Michael Douglas talks about the hot-button film's impact at the time, and its unsettling relevance today
Film Features Falling Down
Thirty years ago this week, Falling Down opened in theaters, inciting a polarized reaction and launching a vigorous social debate. The film, which knocked Groundhog Day out of the top spot at the box office, was directed by Joel Schumacher and featured Michael Douglas as middle-aged defense engineer William Foster (aka D-FENS from his license plate), a Los Angeles man on the verge of a mental breakdown. Abandoning his car in a stalled traffic jam on a sweltering day, D-FENS decides to walk across the city to visit his young daughter for her birthday, even though his ex-wife (Barbara Hershey) has a restraining order against him. Along the way, criminals and ordinary citizens become the target of his increasingly violent behavior.
Ebbe Roe Smith’s gritty and nuanced screenplay takes the viewer on two parallel journeys that collide in the end—the stories of D-FENS and Sgt. Martin Prendergast (Robert Duvall), an LAPD officer on his final day of duty who wants to bring D-FENS in. Both men feel obsolete. Both feel emasculated in their worlds. Both have lost a child—one metaphorically, the other literally. And both struggle with a failed system. But they react to these circumstances in very different ways—where D-FENS feels despair, Prendergast sees hope.
For many, Falling Down became a cinematic litmus test, with viewers seeing D-FENS as a villain, a hero, or sometimes both. His extreme responses to everyday aggravations, marital failures, and various confrontations were derided by some critics, and hailed by others. While some characterizations in the film have not aged well (like the stereotypical Latino gangbangers), the story did manage to capture, as Newsweek declared in a 1993 cover story, “White Male Paranoia.”
Today, in our increasingly fragmented and uncivil society, Falling Down still feels relevant. Scenarios that seemed outrageous then—D-FENS making his fast food complaints while wielding a gun; a young kid showing him how to use a bazooka; the rants of the cartoonish white supremacist store owner—are now reflected in our strange modern reality. Smith’s screenplay was not just of its time; it showed us where we were headed.
After returning from a U.K. press blitz for the latest Ant-Man installment, Douglas spent nearly half an hour revisiting one of his favorite roles in an exclusive conversation with The A.V. Club. There was plenty to look back on and break down.
The A.V. Club: You’ve spoken in the past about how the film’s hairdresser [Lynda Gurasich] came up with that ’50s flattop haircut, which helped unlock the character for you. What else connected you with the film or the character of William “D-FENS” Foster?
Michael Douglas: It was just a great script [that] came at me totally out of the blue. Ebbe Roe Smith had a wonderful script. Originally it was going to be a movie for television. Everybody always thinks of Southern California as the home of Hollywood, but it was really the defense industry center for many, many years. Many of the major defense corporations were in Southern California. [The story had] that character of a guy who was a patriot, worked his ass off, and basically they succeeded in that we got out of the Vietnam War and then he got his pink slip. This whole sort of disenchantment of what happened to his city. It’d be tough to do it now, in terms of some of the issues like weaponry, racism, and all of that. I just found it had a real core that was very truthful. And D-FENS came together between having a little white business shirt, slightly too tight for me, kind of busting at the seams, a little plastic calculator, pens in the pocket, and the hair. [It] just structured that guy. And then just a brilliant concept that the guy tried to get his way across Los Angeles with all the traffic. It’s one of my favorites. I liked it a lot.
AVC: Your father Kirk wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times at the time defending the movie, stating that D-FENS was not the hero but the villain and victim. And that Robert Duvall’s cop is the hero. Did you agree with your father’s assessment back then? And how do you view the character now?
MD: Yeah, I think that’s true. I mean, he [D-FENS] was the antagonist. I don’t know if he’s a villain, but he’s definitely the antagonist. Although I think a lot of people had sympathy and understood, his means and his ends were as an antagonist, and Duvall in his own world is doing his job. Yeah, I buy that. One of the little side stories I do remember is after the film came out, Warner Brothers called and asked me to come down to the studio the next day for a meeting. I went down that next day and the meeting was with the Korean Grocers Association. I came down and the studio said, “Listen, Michael, this is the chairman of the Korean Grocers Association who is very upset with your interpretation of how you’re treating Korean grocers and your behavior.” I said, “Well, I didn’t write it. But there was a reason, I guess, that the writer wrote it. And there was a reason that the character resonated and it was one of the popular scenes in the picture.” He listened to me, and we left the meeting. Soon after that, the Korean Grocers Association started using “smile” buttons [that] they passed out to their stores all around the country. Little buttons with smiles, in terms of changing their attitude. I always thought that was funny. So it hit a note—and the whole use of the weaponry even back then. I have been a big gun control advocate for many, many years. That still holds true.
AVC: Reading fan reactions online, I suspect some people sympathize a little too much with D-FENS in the sense that they only see the surface of the story. But there’s a lot of nuance in this screenplay. What reactions have you gotten over the years from people about this movie?
MD: Positive. That’s one that pops up a lot. I’m always happy about it. That’s one that people mention a lot. It triggered a lot of reaction. I understand how right-wingers could probably be a little too zealous in support of D-FENS. Listen, those are the kind of roles that I love. I love that gray area—I believe we’re all trying to do the right thing, but we get caught up sometimes. And I like those areas that fall right in the middle between the white knight and the black villain, that gray area where you always try to do the right thing. I think D-FENS falls in that area. Ultimately, he’s a tragic figure. He does get killed in the end. And there’s an element of his mental health which is a good panacea for all that he does.
AVC: One of the most poignant moments in the movie comes when he sees the African-American man protesting outside of a bank that denied him a loan, and he’s holding a sign that says “Not Economically Viable,” a phrase D-FENS later repeats with regard to himself. When the protestor gets hauled off by the cops the man locks eyes with him and says, “Don’t forget me.” I think some critics didn’t appreciate the fact that you could show human sides to this guy, despite the fact that he was going out of his mind.
MD: Exactly, exactly. It was just a stunning script. It was really good. Joel [Schumacher] and I did Flatliners. I produced Flatliners with him about two to three years before that. A lot of people thought he was an odd choice for the piece. It was a wonderful, loose environment. It was such a good script. It just always goes to show … I mean, one of the pictures that I love most [from] my father was a movie called Lonely Are The Brave which was written by Dalton Trumbo. And may he rest in peace, David Miller, the director who’s never really [been] of any great repute—but when you have a really good script it’s hard to screw it up. And I must admit, Joel did much more than that. He certainly added [to it] and was just very comfortable with it. He certainly had the right style for it too, but he let the story unfold and tell itself.
AVC: Director Joel Schumacher was often on the receiving end of a lot of critical barbs. What was he like as a director?
MD: Well, he was great. [chuckles] He was easy, just wonderful. Just everything is “You’re perfect,” “Great,” “Fabulous!” Everything was great. He was very fit on his coverage, he just liked to move on and was relatively happy. Every once in a while you had to encourage him about some coverage. “Got it. Let’s move on.” “Joel, maybe we should just get another angle. We don’t really have another angle for this.” But he was comfortable. He was a joy to work with. He liked actors—you can’t say that about all directors—and he had a good sense of humor. And he was very helpful with finding that kind of dark humor, especially with all the weaponry and bazookas.
AVC: For you as an actor, emotionally, what was the hardest scene to shoot?
MD: Probably the hardest one was the ending with “I’m the bad guy?” I remember I was struggling with that. Most of it was straightforward, but also I was somewhat intimidated. I was a great fan of Robert Duvall, and to be able to do something with him and to see what a good actor he was … I remember he held a gun on me and told me to drop my water pistol. He was so effective. I think that I was trying to find the right tone and feeling comfortable with “Am I the bad guy?” And also the relationship with Barbara Hershey, who played my ex-wife, just finding that balance. That was more the pathos of a piece rather than some of the more humorous journey across L.A. And I remember being worried about finding the right tone with that.
AVC: The shooting of the film was interrupted by the Rodney King riots in the spring of 1992.
MD: That was how I ended the picture. Literally, we ended the last shot, and I got my bag packed and went right to the airport and got a plane out of the country. I don’t remember where I was going, but I remember that was the most amazing thing. We were up in the Valley and riding over Coldwater [Canyon], going up and going down the other side. We were tied up at Mulholland and we could see across the city. It looked like a war zone. You could see the smoke coming up in different places and the riots were moving west. That was when they were trying to control the riots moving towards Santa Monica, and we were rushing to get to the airport. There was a question of whether the airport was going to be locked down. It was a pretty crazy time. I don’t know if it’s part of my legacy, but just being involved with films that are involved with the current events of the time, The China Syndrome and a couple of others—that one was right on the nose. There was such a response to what the film is all about.
AVC: What would you want people to get out of the film today, especially younger people?
MD: That’s a really good question. Hopefully, they just enjoy the fact of a well-made picture, just enjoy what a really good script looks like. As far as a social message, I think it’s just about getting along. Sort of an answer to the polarization that’s going on now. And I would say that William represents more of the far right side, and a lack of an ability to accept or understand minorities’ positions. And just accept the fact that America is going to be brown in our future. The shade is going to be closer to brown than white.
AVC: Is there any one big memory that sticks out for you from making Falling Down?
MD: What’s the name [of the guy] who played the [white] supremacist in the store?
AVC: Frederic Forrest.
MD: Frederic Forrest. I remember he scared me because he was so good. The reality, that tone, just scared me. I thought about how good the writing was. The picture was very well cast. I remember that whole sequence with Fred [and] being like, “Wow, look at this guy. He’s really, really good.” I like that. I love the episodic quality of it. Each scene was like a little vignette crossing over, and the mix of pathos and humor. That to me is my favorite area, that kind of dramedy. I love dramedies so that tone I really liked. I remember the finale on the pier was disturbing.
190 Comments
Falling down? That’s the original title? In italy it was renamed Un giorno di ordinaria follia. It translate in A day of ordinary folly/madnessFalling down is so generic and on the nose considering the ending
It had quite a few alternate titles, like One Day of Fury in Brazil and Spain, Freefall in France, The Enraged in Quebec, and Rough Day in Finland.
That sounds like a series of arthouse films.“I’d thought the series peaked with Freefall in France but Rough Day in Finland is a masterpiece in many ways.”
I’m pretty intrigued by One day of fury in Brazil and Spain too
A globe-trotting adventure!
Austin powers: the spy who shagged me was changed in many markets due to the sexual nature of the original title. My favorite was japan’s: austin powers deluxe
I recently discovered that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was released in France as La folle journée de Ferris Bueller, which translates to Ferris Bueller’s Crazy Day.
Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” was released as “Les Filles du docteur March” (The daughters of Dr. March), and apparently that’s pretty typical for French versions of “Little Women”. Dr. March (Bob Odenkirk in Gerwig’s version) is hardly in the story at all, as he was off fighting for the Union in the Civil War.
Pretty sure that’s just the name of the book in France.
Yeah, but there’s no reason for it to be. I get it when things have be changed because the original title is a pun or something that just doesn’t work in the translated language, but otherwise, just translate the title directly.
An alternate international title that’s always amused me is how for the German release of The Sandlot, they gave the dog top billing; Herkules und die Sandlot Kids
The Italian name isn’t on the nose and generic?
Falling Down is a linguistic equivalent to Breaking Bad. It’s a fairly archaic phrase, and was when the movie came out.
On the other hand you guys renamed (the original) “Dawn of the Dead” to “Zombi”, if you want to talk about generic titles. Also the Italian version cut out most of the social commentary of “Dawn of the Dead” and made it a more straight-up horror movie.
In China it was called ‘Angry Man With Short Hair Walks Across Town’
Call it on the nose if you will, but it’s a title that fits. Not only is D-FENS on a downward spiral throughout the film, but he believes his world, everything he built his life around (being a good provider, a hard worker, an upstanding citizen) is falling down around him. His attempts to prop up his crumbling sense of self with aggression and weapons only make things worse and precipitate his own collapse. It’s evocative and to the point.
I think Downward Spiral would’ve been a good name.
It refers to his pivotal character moment in the script. The Nazi wants him to assume the position with both hands and he says he can’t or he’ll “fall down.” He then he kills the Nazi, graduating from problematic malcontent to murderer (murdering a POS, to be clear, so wah, but in sketchy self-DFENS, if you will).
It’s a lot more ambiguous too. What do you so when you fall down? You get back up. At least you hope you do.
The movie manages to be simultaneously anchored to the exact time it was made (DFENS being a defense contractor who just lost his job due to the end of the Cold War) and more relevant than ever (pathetic middle-aged white guy snapping and going on an increasingly violent rampage).
I had the same feeling when I rewatched American History X last year. Both movies are arguably more relevant now than when they were released.
Yep.The scene with “young” Ed Norton on the news, after his dad died? Add a Facebook, a thousand bots, and a couple of chans to that, and you’re approaching contemporary reality.
Well, that killed part of my soul.
Everything feels more heightened and real in the present, especially in adulthood, than the original context with which you previously viewed it. American History X seems more relevant now likely because a lot of people didn’t realize Venice Beach was overrun by Nazis. It seems more relevant now because the LA Riots and Rodney King beating and the Latasha Harlins murderer whose sentence was downgraded to community service and a fine after her conviction are also forgotten, their context lost to indifference and weathered by age.All of the temporality is lost so they seem like they’re predicting a vague future instead of reflecting that present from the perspective of people living at the time.
Exactly. The particular case of a defense contractor losing their job is very tied to the 1990s because fortunately (for them) the never ending War on Terror put them back in business. And more recently maybe more serious threats depending on how long Putin remains in power. And despite what Douglas implied, defense contractors are *still* largely concentrated in Southern California — that part isn’t just historical, although many have their corporate headquarters in the DC area for access to the Pentagon and Congress.
I find that movies, novels or TV shows that deliberately aim for some kind of “universality” often miss the mark, and can end up feeling very dated soon after they come out because they’re often stuck in a point of view that doesn’t keep pace with changing societal beliefs. Whereas a story that focusses on something specific about its time can often stumble on the fact that we spend a lot of time applying the same old anxieties to new situations.
Pathletic?
If the dude at the McDonalds counter had JUST GIVEN HIM A DAMN MCMUFFIN!
“Yeah well, hey, I’m really sorry.”
I worked at a McDonald’s in high school. The breakfast menu and the regular menu are made using different equipment (mostly). I had the unfortunate pleasure of disassembling the breakfast equipment and cleaning it during many a switchover.
I workes at a McDonald’s as a youth and if their was breakfast food left over at the changeover theyd throw it into a special receptacle to be extra ruined so none of us could have it.
We’d sneak a McNugget every now and then. TAKE THAT, CORPORATE OVERLORDS! Of course management would act as if we robbed bank.
Stolen nuggets while working > any bought nugget even fresh out the grease. HS/College McDonald’s: ruined both ketchup and sweet tea
If Brian Dennehy had just GIVEN RAMBO A SANDWICH AND LET HIM LEAVE TOWN ON HIS OWN!
“IT’S OVER, JOHNNY!”“Hold on, I haven’t finished my sandwich.”
NOTHING IS OVER! NOTHING! I didn’t get my dipping sauces.
The Soviets crush the Mujahideen and 9/11 doesn’t happen?
This.
I only recently (last few years) saw the original Rambo. Imagine my surprise when it wasn’t about John Rambo fighting communists in the jungle, but an asshole LEOs after the town’s big-dick sheriff decided to pick on the wrong guy because they didn’t want some veteran “drifter” in his town.
And the first Rocky was a pretty serious picture too, unlike the cartoonish sequels to that. Stallone could have been a serious dramatic actor but he decided to be an action hero.
Producer: “Why didn’t the sheriff just help him get a meal and then send him on his way?”Writer: “So the movie can happen! Listen sir, I’m going to have to ask you to get off of my back about my world-building!”Producer: “Woah, let me get off of that thing!”(It’s super-easy, barely an inconvenience!)
Willingly suspending your disbelief is tight!
McDonald’s learned its lesson. Thirty years later.
All I wanted was a Pepsi.
The McGuffin Muffin that caused it all to fall down.
It’s interesting as a litmus test just because there’s a much more expansive take than the binary “he’s a hero/he’s a villain”, and that’s that he can both be sympathetic for facing issues everyone does and sometimes wishes they could rail against, while also being an example of someone going off the deep end in a way that’s self-destructive to himself and to others, and hence is incredibly myopic and selfish (I think the people who try and paint him as the “guy with one bad day who snaps” miss the point that his home life was already wrecked.)The fast food encounter I think is one of the most reshaped clips because I think it speaks to the tiny yet infuriating details of modern life. It’s a sort of understandable primal scream, and at the same time it’s directed at these minimum wage workers who don’t have any skin in the game, either. The perfect encapsulation of the movie’s message.
Yeah, it’s easier to yell at a kid running a cash register than your boss.
One great little touch in that scene is that he missed the breakfast deadline so tightly that the meals are still stacked up right behind the counter, and the employees could easily just grab one if they wanted, but still insist on going down the company line probably because they’re terrified of their boss.
I imagine most fast food workers aren’t terrified of their bosses, but figure it’s not worth the aggravation to break the rules and have the boss complain.
When this movie was made, I don’t think anyone imagined that McDonald’s would have all day breakfast someday.
Truly, it is a wondrous time to be alive.
This movie healed society!
Apparently that was only true from 2015 to 2020. All-day breakfast hasn’t returned since COVID quashed it.
At least now we know it’s a possibility. It wasn’t 30 years ago.
They still have all-day breakfast (at least around me), but it’s a limited menu.
Yep. If you want all day breakfast from a national fast food chain these days you have to go with Sonic.
I always thought it was more upsetting that I can’t get a burger in the morning
Truly the greatest causality of the pandemic. Besides the roughly 7 million deaths worldwide, I mean.
But in a world without all day breakfast, might not the living end up envying the dead?
They don’t…
I’ve worked the kind of job where people got disciplined for selling something a few minutes early/late. It absolutely sucks. We want to sell the thing! But selling the thing can fuck us over if you turn out to be a secret shopper.
[T]he binary “he’s a hero/he’s a villain”, and that’s that he can both be sympathetic for facing issues everyone does and sometimes wishes they could rail against, while also being an example of someone going off the deep end in a way that’s self-destructive to himself and to others, and hence is incredibly myopic and selfishI always wonder about the scene with Frederick Forrest, speaking of hero/villain. As a kid, I loved it because it showed the D-FENS wasn’t just a monster, he still had a bit of a moral compass and knew when someone was truly over the line. Similarly, I liked that he was disgusted by some of the people he had unwittingly inspired.When I got a bit older it also made me feel a tad uncomfortable because it was as if the film is saying “Yeah D-FENS is racist but he’s not bad racist, like a Nazi is!”In a sense it doesn’t really matter, the film doesn’t tell you what to think and that level of ambiguity is always good.You’re completely right about the “one bad day” thing. That’s how the film is usually described but it’s clear the D-FENS was already very much in need of help before the events of the film.
When I got a bit older it also made me feel a tad uncomfortable because it was as if the film is saying “Yeah D-FENS is racist but he’s not bad racist, like a Nazi is!”I can see why you see it that way, but I always took it as the opposite, as showing how even people who are racists (and D-FENS’s racism is well established at that point) have lines they’re not willing to cross or even contemplate. It’s a great scene because it introduces Douglas’s character to the thing he’s going to struggle with at the end of the film, the “I’m the bad guy?” moment. The scene with the Nazi is the first time he has to deal with the gulf between how he sees himself and how the world sees him. Douglas’s character is not just disgusted by the white supremacy stuff the guy spouts at him, he’s blindsided by it. He’s surprised at the idea that this guy, who Douglas identifies as a bad guy, is 100% convinced that he and D-FENS are fellow travelers who are fighting on the same side. He’s oblivious to the fact that the things he’s done so far that day could be read that way.
It’s the moment where D-FENS (and the audience) are forced to ask “What’s the difference between these two guys?” And I think the answer is that the Nazi is more honest with himself. The whole movie is like the last half hour of Taxi driver when he leaves the car and goes on a rampage.
I don’t think I agree with you there. I haven’t seen Falling Down since it was in heavy rotation on IFC in the aughts, but one thing I remember (or maybe misremember) about the scene was that it wasn’t clear to me that, for all his preparations, the Frederic Forrest character had actually ever taken violent racist action. I always felt it was implied that he hadn’t, and that was a big part of the reason that he welcomed D-FENS so wholeheartedly: here was someone who’d done the stuff the white supremacist had only fantasized about. And in that context it seemed to me like a couple of guys who are in different forms of denial. One has a white supremacist self-identification that he suppresses until D-FENS comes along—he’s basically closeted. And the other doesn’t identify as a racist, but during the mental breakdown he’s suffering all of this racism comes out. The scene reads very similarly to sexual confusion/gay panic scenes that were big at the time (I’m thinking like the end of American Beauty, or the big scene in The Crying Game), just with white supremacy in the place of homosexuality. Given that Schumacher directed it, I doubt that’s unintentional.
I didn’t mean that the Nazi had been violent. I meant that they both hated the same people.I don’t think the Nazi was suppressing anything. He may have been hiding it somewhat (not great for business back then), but he had Zyklon B canisters in the back. That guy knew exactly who he was.D-FENS thought he was the good guy.
Do you really believe that the Nazi doesn’t think of himself as the good guy, as well? Because I’d argue he doesn’t know that he’s a bad guy, either. He just knows that he’s a Nazi, albeit one who doesn’t seem to act on his Nazism (he seems to just collect gear and relics, which he keeps in secret) until he meets D-FENS. D-FENS doesn’t understand all the violence coming out of him in the movie, but he knows he’s not a Nazi. And he’s correct in this: Nazism isn’t just racism, it’s a very specific set of beliefs that D-FENS, for all his frustration and anger at a modern multicultural world he doesn’t understand, hasn’t signed on to and recognizes as bad. Not every person who harbors racist thoughts is a Nazi, or a white nationalist, or a Klan member.
I think I’m not being clear with the terms I’m using and it’s confusing.The Army Surplus Guy isn’t really a Nazi. He may be a neo-Nazi, although we don’t know enough about him to know whether he’s going to meetings or anything. He thinks he’s the goodguy, but is aware that a lot of society disagrees with him. This is the chief difference between him and D-FENS, who probably hasn’t thought that much about it.I think D-FENS’s biggest objection to Nazism is that it’s a foreign ideology. It goes against his identity as a defense contractor for HIS country. The Nazis are supposed to be the badguys, not him.These guys believe very similar things though. If you took the Korean grocery scene and changed the races and setting, it could be from a Holocaust film. All he needs to do is throw a rock through the window.When I say these guys are the same, it’s their beliefs (not their actions) I’m referring to. It’s worth noting that Army Surplus Guy expects to go home alive at the end of the day. It’s not clear that D-FENS has thought that far ahead, but this is probably why ASG isn’t out shooting people in the streets.
I think that scene with the Nazi identifying with him is the first time he realizes that maybe he us the bad guy. He doesn’t admit it to himself right away, but I’m sure when he delivers the line at the end he’s thinking about the Nazi.
Yeah it wasn’t so much “one bad day” as “the one day it was finally all too much.” His spiral included letting all of his most base attitudes towards minorities come to the surface in a way that civilized society typically does not permit.
…until the internet, and then DJT made it “acceptable” in public.
Definitely. And to this day I still use “You can call me ‘Miss Folsom’ if you want to” in response to people’s misplaced anger. I loved that character so much.
Ultimately, all these roads lead to the abusive aspects of capitalism.
As a little kid I highly sympathized with the character right until the end, especially after how he handled the Nazi. But it’s one of those films with an antagonist like in “Law Abiding Citizen” where a certain segment of the population forgets to get off the train and watch it crash into the wall for which it’s inevitably headed because they, like the character, can only see grievance and don’t see that the retaliation itself is its own higher level of pathology than anything that happened to cause it.
I haven’t seen it in years, but I do remember that William’s marriage/family situation is sort of revealed gradually, so it’s like, “This man’s having a bad day” and then “Whoa, his wife’s a bitch” and then “She’s not such a bitch, he’s become unbearable”and on to “He’s devastated by being cut off from his child” to, finally, “This guy’s reactions to his stresses are inappropriate; he’s nuts and he’s dangerous.”
While it doesn’t surprise me that William has become a poster boy for disgruntled white guys mad about their imagined loss of privilege, that’s a very shallow interpretation of the character which ignores a lot of what’s revealed both by the story and by Douglas’s performance.
“It’d be tough to do it now, in terms of some of the issues like weaponry, racism, and all of that.”I imagine Douglas doing a dismissive hand wave while saying this.
“I don’t know if he’s a villain, but he’s definitely the antagonist.”
It’s unfortunate that Douglas doesn’t know the difference between villain and antagonist.
D-Fens *is* the protagonist (noun: the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text) as well as being the villain (noun: (in a film, novel, or play) a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot).So, thanks for coming out, Mister Douglas, but you’re oh for two.
That Joel Schumacher stuff sounds like damning with faint praise. It sounds like a nightmare for an editor to work with his footage.
Schumacher is pretty apeshit, by most accounts. And I love the dude.
One of my favorite movies. Love this scene in particular:
I can just see a former A.V. Club writer doing that outside their offices.
Nathan’s still swinging. Sounds like he has a tough go of it much of the time economic-wise…but definitely viable.
Maybe the ones who criticized this movie when they reviewed it twelve years ago: Our most-hated movies of the ’90s (avclub.com)
Yikes. Since links still don’t work, Tasha Robinson:“…[one of the films that made me angriest both as a viewer and as a reviewer] because it’s such a ham-handed, wrong-headed, self-congratulatory attempt to encapsulate its era’s spirit…a tone-deaf, self-pitying lament about the terrible persecution facing the oppressed majority in an era of political correctness and increasing multiculturalism. In its ugly, skewed world, almost everyone but this madman is dumb, incompetent, and offensive, and his only possible solution is to wipe a few of these losers off the face of the earth, then die. It’s a profoundly hateful film disguised alternately (and erratically) as either tragedy or humor.”And this was in the glory days of AVClub too. The irony is that the 12 years since have aged the film far better than this take.
Have they? Every retrospective review of it I can find from it’s 25th anniversary in 2017, 5 years after Robinson’s review, find a similar distaste with the film and that it’s white-victim narrative has aged horribly.
Well, except for the article you’re commenting on that views it positively. Most commenters here also seem to be praising it.
It’s an excellent take.
“I believe we’re all trying to do the right thing”Various Fox newsreaders would like a word.
this. the idea that everybody thinks they’re a hero and doing the right thing is extremely extremely silly.
Or people who think they’re the hero are more likely to be garbage people because they discount the agency and interests of others. For them, doing the right thing means satisfying this hero complex, in which often the only beneficiary is their own perseverance against a society that doesn’t value them at the expense of everyone else.
You think that the number of people who think they are doing the right thing and fail that badly are more likely to be garbage than: people who don’t care if they are doing the right thing + people who know they are doing the wrong thing?I mean, trying to be virtuous seems to be getting a bad rep these days but that’s a bit harsh. Remember that trashing do-gooders is just virtue signaling for the anti-virtue crowd.
Yeah this sounds like projection
For them “the right thing” is serving their interests and ambitions and damn the consequences. It’s even rational if you change the priorities. If you think your personal enrichment is of greater importance than the continuance of democratic government why not peddle election fraud lies? Hell it’s Fox that’s getting sued, not Carlson and Hannity. Even if they end up out of their jobs they’ll have new ones soon and have plenty of money to carry them in-between. They’ll never experience real repercussions and they knew it before they started.
The real explanation I hear is “everyone does it, so I’m stupid and miss out if I don’t”. Low-trust society fostering a low-trust society and it’s all kicked off my xenophobes who are constantly afraid of society, the government etc.
One of the key mental tricks conservatives tend to pull is that they convince themselves that “I’m just trying to do the best FOR MY FAMILY”. This is a neat maneouvre, because it allows you to couch selfish acts as selfless ones: your family includes you but it also includes other people who depend on you. You can justify pretty much any game theory defection to yourself by convincing yourself that you’re actually doing it for other people. (“What kind of father WOULDN’T embezzle money to benefit their kids?” “What kind of mother WOULDN’T try to cheat a school entry exam for their children?”)
I think that also explains nationalism and other forms of tribalism to a large extent, in that you can convince yourself you’re doing good for your group and whether what you’re doing is good for the world as a whole is just too much for one person to be expected to care about.
Hmmm … while I want to believe that people had varying takes on this movie (consistent with the Newsweek headline) my lived-in experience was definitely different. I was a senior in high school when this came out and my recollection is that everyone in my orbit viewed D-FENS unequivocally as the hero. I remember thinking “well … maybe not?” but being afraid to even voice that opinion.
I’d guess “Senior in high school” explains that. I remember basically the same thing. Everyone (my age) thought he was awesome, especially for the McDonalds scene. I didn’t actually see the movie until some years later and remember being surprised that he wasn’t the good guy. I probably would have bought into it in high school tho.
High school definitely explains some of it. BUT … I remember my dad also being pretty darn convinced D-FENS was the good guy. hoo boy!
The McDonald’s scene is the cinematic equivalent of reading Atlas Shrugged at that age. Or owning a Sugar Ray CD.
The problem with the movie, then and now, is that it too eagerly invites the audience to cheer for most of what he does. The biggest way that it was ahead of its time is that it was practically designed to be carved up into clips for YouTube and social media consumption. Each scene is a little daily frustration that a lot of people can relate to, and at the end of it, the protagonist goes off and resolves it in a way we are not allowed to. In very little of the movie until the ending does he get explicitly painted as an unhinged person who we shouldn’t root for. The somewhat comic (albeit blackly comic) tone and not generally explicit violence does a lot of the lifting—if it was darker, more violent, and less funny, then it wouldn’t feel so satisfying to so many viewers.The fast food scene, which did go semi-viral on YouTube years after the fact, is a case in point. A common annoyance that many people have experienced, and can feel personal satisfaction when he avenges their frustration. But if he shot one of those kids in the stomach and we had to watch her bleed out, it would be a lot less satisfying and a lot more disturbing.
YES. This all day. I’m not sure I agree with Bryan that there’s a lot of nuance in this movie. Now, to be clear, I haven’t seen it in a long time and I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But my recollection, like yours, is that it’s mostly kind of problematic … the audience cheered for him because the movie invited them to do exactly that.
I too was senior in high school when the movie came out. At that time I was a super movie geek. I wanted to be writer/director and was more into Ozu, Fellini, etc. than most contemporary filmmakers. Basically I, and my friends, were high school film snobs. Emphasize the high school part.That said, me and friends had a similar reaction at the time. That there was not a lot of nuance. Basically, the film wanted to have its cake and eat it too. It wasn’t darkly comic enough to approach satire. On the contrary the comedic aspects worked to blunt Foster’s extremes and keep the viewer on his side. It also didn’t help that I had just seen Man Bites Dog a few weeks earlier, which sort of reset my bar for dark comedy. Obviously, I didn’t expect a Hollywood production to be anywhere near as extreme as that, and it’s a different premise, but it heightened the feeling that Falling Down kept pulling its punches and didn’t feel like it knew what it wanted to say.I haven’t seen the movie since it came out though. I didn’t find interesting enough to want to watch it again in the intervening decades, which I guess says something. I’d have to watch it again to see if I have a different view on it these days.
I saw it in 93 when I was in my early 20’s, and rewatched it just now. Back then I hated it; I thought it glorified the violence. Thirty years later it felt different. I didn’t root for his outbursts. Instead it was tragic, scary and very prescient.
I mean it’s meant to challenge the viewer and it does just that.
Not disagreeing with your take, but just to add that it’s weird/sad how experience affects perception: there had been a (then-unprecedented) McDonald’s mass shooting in the early 80’s when I was a kid, and a decade on, it was ALL I could think of during that scene in the theater. The snickers and cheers around me made me uncomfortable af.
My friends and I watched this in high school, too, and while we didn’t see him necessarily as a hero, we could sympathize with him. We knew he had to go down in the end.
Of course, a lot of that sympathy was because we were young and growing up at a time when “everything is actually bullshit” was the mood of the decade. We were starting to learn that even us white kids from middle class families were going to get fucked by the machine, too.
My friends and I were also in high school, maybe 16 or 17 when we watched it? I think we mostly found it funny, like watching a video game the way he kept upgrading his weapon from stage to stage. It felt a bit like silly wish fulfillment, like he was obviously a bad guy and none of us even slightly imagined him as a hero, but just imagine if you just had the off-switch in your brain to finally call out all of the bullshit in society. We were way too young and/or inexperienced to appreciate the deeper narrative.I think maybe now I’m finally old enough to watch this film again!
I had a similar experience, but I also grew up in the South Bay area of LA County, which is where a huge chunk of those defense contractors were based. However, I think a lot (but not all) of the media narrative at the time was also very sympathetic to the main character, in the same way that the media can go out of its way to sympathize the type of folks who stormed the capital by invoking “economic anxiety.”
DFENS is a villain, the problem is that (most?) people are morons. look at how many people still think fight club is some MMA shit, or that Born in the USA is a patriotic song, even when they know all the lyrics and sing along with it.
Truffaut once said that you can’t make a truly anti-war film; the act of narrativising and fictionalising war in a way that will make people actually watch your movie will always make it, in some small way at least, exciting and entertaining and appealing. It’s a similar kind of deal with vigilante movies, since you can make the protagonist as twisted and weird all you want and introduce subtext till you’re blue in the face, but the audience is still going to watch them blow away scumbags and reject the conventions of society that part of them, no matter how liberal they are, wants to reject deep down as well.
Oh interesting. This film I’ve never heard of due to it being the same age as me sounds extremely relevant. Might give it a go.
due to it being the same age as me This actually explains a lot.
Definitely an underrated and more nuanced flick than online reactives give it credit for.
I recently watched it again, and realized the police chief was a young Arlo Givens.
“Ultimately, he’s a tragic figure. He does get killed in the end.”Jesus Mike, spoiler alert!
I was recently in line for breakfast at Wendy’s and had an employee flip the menus from breakfast to lunch after the person on the drive-thru speaker told me she’d get right back to me to take my order. Suddenly, it was no longer breakfast time. In an instant, ham and eggs and croissants and French toast sticks had been erased from the annals of human history, and mankind was familiar only with hamburgers and French fries, sodas and milkshake. A biscuit? What’s that? We cannot sell you that which does not exist!My first thought was about Falling Down, but my second thought was that a cashier not already familiar with the movie and its relatable but not entirely sympathetic or self-serious tone, as viewed from the 90s, would likely be terrified that this would be my first thought. And that second thought hit me harder than missing breakfast.
I saw this in the theater and remember it well and yes it has a lot of relevance today.
So many angry irrelevant straight white men attacked the capital with rage. Men like in this movie, like my unemployed electrical engineer brother-in-law protest every weekend at our state capital because he is fully gone MAGA.
like my unemployed electrical engineer brother-in-law protest every weekend at our state capital because he is fully gone MAGA. Apparently that’s a better use of energy than hitting the want ads?
his mommy does not want him working because it may endanger his spousal support and he would not have as much time to go to trump rallies.
“his mommy does not want him working because it may endanger his spousal support and he would not have as much time to go to trump rallies.”Perfect example of how much a lie the image these MAGA guys have of themselves. He-man living off his wife because his mommy told him so.
Sounds like they are one step away from the Normal Bates relationship.
I watch her comb his hair when he was in his late 20s.
He got beaten and his pocket pistol stolen at the gorge floyd protests in south minneapolis.
But I thought guns were for self protection! How could this happen???
He keeps telling me that he negotiates with the fbi and local cops between maga and antifa. I keep waiting for him to say something at thanksgiving that I can call the fbi about.
“He got beaten and his pocket pistol stolen at the gorge floyd protests in south minneapolis.”Sounds like he is a wannbe “Kyle Rittenhouse”
Let me guess, he also constantly complains about those “other” people getting stuff they didn’t “earn”?
Then he couldnt blame immigrants/commies/trans-kids for his problems.
He must be really bad at his job. Electrical Engineering degrees are gold!
He is very bad at interacting with people and social situations also his mother does not want him to have a job so he can get spousal support from his ex wife.
“He is very bad at interacting with people and social situations”Yes, you already said he was an electrical engineer.(sez the guy with a PhD in electrical engineering)
Capitalism creates a breeding ground for guys like that.
I can get the outrage of some of the MAGA nuts, they’ve been failed by both parties (although, the democrats are the only party that even tries to do anything for the working class, but not nearly enough, and they don’t fight hard enough), but to latch onto such a well known, and obvious conman as Donald Trump, well, that I don’t get. What I really don’t get is all the retired firefighters, cops, and military at these rallies, I mean, what are they even mad about? They’ve practically hit the lottery, they got to retire relatively young, and with great government pensions.
Honestly regarding the firefighters, cops, and the military MAGA-nuts it’s between bigotry and lack of daily parades for being awesome (if they actually made it to retirement – so many leave or get drummed the fuck out) with too many not in positions that value critical thinking. Sure, so many got retirement before 40 and actual pensions… but like 90% of them weren’t doing the cool shit TV and movies highlight: not too many fires, most of policing is tickets and paperwork, and there are military jobs that make accountants not Rambos. So they’re vulnerable to politicians who know to stroke the balls with ‘real heroes’ talk when fan servicing, despite shitting on things they care about. Then despite still being a majority many are in their feelings about the ranks being less white, straight, Christian, and male. As more people see them as just people with jobs and the groups who should fear or be in awe join ranks and even thrive… yeah.
well said, my not dead uncle was ex military, communications not shooting at people type job. spent his 20+ years in then worked for other governments and contractors over seas for another 15 or so. Then the jobs stopped and he went full deplorable maga. filled his house full of guns and threatened me every time i posted anything anti trump or anything liberal on social media. He died last year of bladder cancer from 40 years of smoking.
Even when discussing this with friends right after release, I’ve never really understood how some considered D-FENS even an anti-hero. Sympathetic at times, absolutely, but the movie tells you outright that his whole walk across LA was to murder his ex-wife and daughter. That tends to put a damper on a character’s virtues.One of them told me at the time that they ‘finally made a movie for us’, which the fact I still remember that phrasing 30 years later suggests how WTF that was before such a term was used. But besides the banality of someone who was about to become an investment banker deciding he was D-FENS too – nowadays he’s probably a younger version of ‘get off my golf course!’ – it does strike me nowadays that there have been very, very few movies before or since that so effectively captured white angst, let alone doing so with nuance. It’s one reason it holds up so well so many years later.That said, I will admit that when I’ve run across road work with 5 guys working and 20 standing around doing nothing, the bazooka scene has come to mind more than a few times, though.
Sympathetic at times, absolutely, but the movie tells you outright that his whole walk across LA was to murder his ex-wife and daughter. That tends to put a damper on a character’s virtues. Yep. In a way, it’s a stripped-down version of Satan as “anti-hero” in Paradise Lost. Sympathetic? Eh…kinda? A hero? Absolutely fucking not, for the same reason D-FENS isn’t: he’s deliberately wreaking havoc.
but the movie tells you outright that his whole walk across LA was to murder his ex-wife and daughter True, although I’m not sure Foster himself consciously knew that until Prendergast pointed it out to him.
Oh, he doesn’t, at least not any more than he ever realizes he’s a good chunk of the way towards the Frederick Forrest character too. But that’s one of the reasons the script is brilliant, since it pulls the rug out of you at the end if you’ve just been along for the vicious humor and not paying attention to what Pendergast has been begging his boss, colleagues, and the viewer to see about Foster for a good slug of the movie.Also, the “Fuck you, fuck you very much” to his boss is classic, along with ‘My name is mud’ for where his marriage is about to go (or, well, has been, just that he’s almost got the reverse of the movie title in that he’s now standing up to her.)
I was 9 when the movie came out so I probably saw it on HBO whenever it ran on there because I recall it being pretty new when I saw it. Even as a child it was obvious, to me at least, that D-FENS was a broken man who’d been breaking down long before everything stopped and he abandoned his car in traffic. Of course I didn’t catch the more complex themes and relationships in the movie or all of the comparison to real world events. At the time I think what I took from it was that sometimes things aren’t as simple as heroes and villains, that you can become a bad guy without even realizing it.
Lunatic right-wingers have zero media literacy
Artists are incredibly naive about what the public will take away from their work. It’s 100% guaranteed that a huge chunk of the public will take away from your song, or book, or movie exactly what’s on the surface. A middle-class nerd gets picked on by minorities and faceless corporations alike, and he gets his revenge on all of them. That’s the message, like it or not.
Dude had a reputation as a liberal back in the day. Then he straight-up. white-flighted his ass outta Dodge as soon as the film wrapped to get even further away from the consequences of living large while cops were happily trying to beat a Black man to death in full public view. That’s not being naïve, that’s cowardice.
Why do we watch Falling Down, Bruce?
Take your damn star
Not a big 90’s Iron Maiden fan but I like the song Man on the Edge which was inspired by Falling Down.
Frederic Forrest doesn’t have a “k” at the end of his name, he was the lead in a bunch of movies that weren’t great (“Hammett”) but a great character actor. Recently there was a post on some thing about the list of possibilities to play Deckard in Blade Runner and he was a possibility.For some reason, just like Paul Newman, the average jackass doesn’t think of Kirk Douglas and Michael Douglas as jewish. If they did I think they would see this film differently in terms of how they want it to be a racist fantasy. Douglas and Duvall make the movie, but it is hamstrung by its closeness to David Mamet’s “Edmond” which was made into a not great movie with Bill Macy.
They don’t use obviously Jewish names and all look (or looked) like macho Anglo guys. I think that’s it.
William Shatner too. Although that is his actual birth name unlike say, Kirk Douglas who adopted a more “Anglo” sounding stage name.
A LOT of the TOS actors were Jewish*, I don’t know 8f it had much impact on the show ( although the vulcan ‘live long and prosper’ hand thing was part of a rabbinical blessing I think?).(* well 3 in the main cast , at least once Koening joined, Plus a Black lady and an Asian guy, by 60s standards thats pretty damn diverse.)
…and I love his line reading on “He’d kill us if he got the chance…”
Never get out of the boat.
I’m guilty in my recent post of spelling Frederic Forrest’s name with a k too. Sorry. But it does let me point this out – that man is one of the best actors. Always, no matter the movie. As you point out, Hammett wasn’t great – he was. Same with The Two Jakes. I first saw him in When the Legends Die (and no, I don’t think he’s American Indian; he sure wouldn’t be in that movie if it were made today) – it was his first movie, I think. His part in Apocalypse Now was one of the few relatively realistic, non-stylized portrayals, and made me like Chef better than any character in the movie.He was Blue Duck in Lonesome Dove (is he part Indian..?), he was Dashiell Hammett (again) in Citizen Cohn, he was the hippie/cop captain on the first season of 21 Jump Street, and he made a great Pap Finn in a decent Huckleberry Finn movie in the 80s.Anyway, just came here to mention that I’ve never seen Frederic Forrest NOT give a great performance.
He also played Bette Midler’s boyfriend in “The Rose”, which is a fantastic performance.
preach!
Apparently, Duvall had trouble with the powers-that-be on Lonesome Dove because he’d recruited a Native American for the part of Blue Duck, but the producers insisted on casting a white actor–supposedly Klaus Kinski and Rudolf Nureyev were being considered before they cast Forrest.
David Mamet’s “Edmond” which was made into a not great movie with Bill Macy. The problem with that one was not Macy (who did fine) but the writing. A bit of Mamet’s dialogue goes a long way with me, and I’m not sure he’s capable of writing as nuanced a character (or script) as Ebbe Roe Smith did. There, I said it.
To be fair, it was a play that Stuart Gordon (god bless him) did not make Mamet rewrite enough (because they went WAY back and Chicago, Gordon directed the first production of the completed Sexual Perversity in Chicago). Mamet had left for hollywood for a while, then he came back with Edmond and next was Glengarry and exploded. Mamet also wrote a lot of other screenplays that he directed that were undercooked, sometimes hilariously so (Heist, Danny Devito: “Everybody wants money. That’s why they call it money!” Everybody: what?). And now he’s a right-wing dickbag. But you’re right.
This is a really underrated Duvall role, I think. And one of my most memorable scenes from the movie is actually is asshole police captain complaining that Duvall never curses, and that he doesn’t trust a man who doesn’t curse. I also find that to be true.
And Duvall’s wife is played by Tuesday Weld, which is interesting because most of us think of her as a young woman because of the famous photo of her in a a fur coat that has been reproduced many times (such as on the cover of Matthew Sweet’s 1991 album “Girlfriend”).
Michael Keaton is MY Michael Douglas.
As Adam Sandler said, Paul Newman is half Jewish. It looks like his mother was Catholic, so he wouldn’t count as Jewish per Jewish law.
You mean per orthodox Jewish law, we mostly ignore those guys. In any case, it doesn’t change that if you marched at Charlottesville you probably shouldn’t be quoting “Cool Hand Luke”
Interestingly enough, Hammett is one of those movies that’s an interesting mess. The director, Wim Wenders, directed about 30% of the actual film, while Francis Ford Coppola directed the rest.
What does being Jewish have to do with anything?
Nice interview. I’m glad Douglas is proud of this work, and more glad that he several times mentioned how good the writing was (and yeah, Frederick Forrest was so good…!). It’s been years since I’ve seen the movie, but I am pretty sure it was marketed as a comedy, sort of – a dark comedy, which it kind of is, but I think there was some audience misunderstanding/misinterpretation initially. It’s not great that the film resonates so well all these years later, but that’s a problem with the country, not the movie.I remember on my first viewing marveling at how perfect Douglas was in the part. As William Goldman noted later (when talking about how Douglas wasn’t really right for The Ghost and the Darkness) – “ -what does Douglas play so brilliantly? This: the flawed contemporary American male.” Falling Down could probably work with another star, but Douglas committed to the part, especially the fact that he’s playing a bad guy who only realizes at the end (and then disbelievingly) that he is a bad guy.
*white male
Smile buttons?
Excellent interview and great to see AV Club still doing stuff like this.To add to the many insightful points already posted, something that stood out for me when reading Douglas’s recollections here is how difficult it continues to be for actor to discuss characters like this to the press and the public. There always seems to be this desire to ask for the actors to simplify uncomfortable characters like DFENS to the public while that is not what drew the actor to the role to begin with.While there are large difference, something about this reminded me about some of the discussions regarding Tar and how Blanchett has had to address certain aspects of it.
1. That trailer spoils all the best parts!
2. There’s a lot about D-Fens’ gradual descent that makes him feel like a proto-Walter White. It’s not hard to imagine Bryan Cranston’s chemistry teacher walking up to the gangbangers who failed their drive-by attempt, taking their bag of guns, and declaring he’s the tough guy now. Having just rewatched Falling Down, I was struck at how easily it could be ripped out of the headlines today. For half the movie, it’s stunningly uncomfortable how right-wing Douglas’ rants sound. Then, remarkably, the movie actually comments on that, by having him confront the very group of people he would appeal to. (Notably, Breaking Bad’s Heisenberg also eventually finds himself in bed with Neo-Nazis). Movies from the 90s can sometimes get too much credit for what are happy coincidences, but this genuinely proved the script was operating on a smart level. But Falling Down has got a lot to say about a lot of things, from the work force and unemployment, to domestic violence and policing. At one point, a cop tells the estranged wife that if she wants better protection, she should vote for people who will help better fund law enforcement. And spoilers for the ending, but shooting an unarmed person who only had a water gun, hits a lot different now. Even some of the mental health aspects we talk about today is a subtextual theme. This is a better movie than I remember it being.
For half the movie, it’s stunningly uncomfortable how right-wing Douglas’ rants sound. Then, remarkably, the movie actually comments on that, by having him confront the very group of people he would appeal to. He still appeals to those people. Falling Down memes litter right wing Having Foster be like, well, I’m not a full-on neo-Nazi, is faint praise when the film has him otherwise often pointing his ire towards POC. Not to mention the stereotypical depictions of POC in the film. That sequence is honestly a cop out. And spoilers for the ending, but shooting an unarmed person who only had a water gun, hits a lot different now. I can’t see how that “hits different now.” It’s a very intentional suicide by cop from Foster. He knows what he’s doing. It’s nothing like Tamir Rice or Tyre King, or the many incidents where cops killed Black people thinking a fucking cell phone was a gun.
Uh, what “stereotypical depictions of POC” in the film? Rachel Ticotin’s character? Vondie Curtis-Hall’s character which D-Fen seemed to be sympathetic to and nodded his head in agreement when he got arrested?
I never had the closest relationship with my dad growing up, but for some reason, Falling Down was the only movie ever he was like “Hey, have you seen this? You should watch it, I’ll watch it again with you”, and knowing how he is now, well, I guess I shouldn’t of been surprised when he bought all those guns and gasmasks.
“stereotypical Latino gangbangers”Have you ever met a Latino gangbanger? They are a walking stereotype. The movie was spot on.
The fast food scene reminded me of the
“Hey! They’re holding up the phone company!”
scene in Fun with Dick and Jane.It’s just a cathartic scene about something most people have secretly (or not) wanted to do.
Oh thank Christ, I thought this was yet another remake by a streaming service.This (brilliant) movie will hopefully never be remade. An Anti-Hero like this could motivate a small army of school shooters.
Now I want to see a satirical movie about someone trying to remake THIS movie in 2023. Is Armando Iannucci busy?
It’d be tough to do it now, in terms of some of the issues like weaponry, racism, and all of that.I always find quotes like these from older actors and directors so awfully self congratulatory. There are far more films and shows today that deal with those themes than there were in 1993. I don’t mean to single out Douglas, who seems like an overall good guy. It’s just something you hear fairly often from white actors and directors which makes them appear quite cloistered and unaware of current filmmaking.
A blogger going by “The unapologetic Mexican” back in the day wrote a screed taking this movie apart piece by piece for racism. He made some fair points, but he runs into the same problem Michael Harriott used to when he was at the Root. To wit, extremely incisive and talented when they wanted to be, but given to writing lazy hateful garbage in between brilliant content.Can’t find the article, but if anyone else does and posts the URL it’s worth reading. (at least as far as I recall 15 or so years later)
I don’t see anyone talking about the film’s neatest trick which is that D-FENS, being an engineer, takes the shortest possible path to his ex-wife’s house and walks a straight line across L.A., and that straight line takes us through basically every level of socio-economic zone in the city. I’d be interested to hear Douglas talk about that from a production standpoint.
I always liked that you start the movie with your normal guy ‘hero’ who just keeps reacting to bad luck and the world’s indifference to his plight . And by the end you realise that he was never really a ‘good’ guy , and each reaction just proved he was really always a villain from the start,.Its the same thing Breaking Bad did, except Walter White fell ‘up’ , at least for a while.Also Duvall’s ( who is the movie’s real hero) “ Fuck you , fuck you very much” line has always been one of my favourites of all time.
Tee Hee Hee… Couldn’t resist making it just so I could order myself a sampler.
https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1428909923/d-fens-had-no-posse-things-might-not?click_key=f0346382aa7896828707f18add7e2651091072d5%3A1428909923&click_sum=3287358b&ref=shop_home_active_1
I was around when the movie first came out, and I sure don’t recall any vigorous social debate over it. It’s a cartoon.
I have nothing to say other than it’s nice to see some original content on AVC.
“There but for the grace of God go I”. We all get angry at life’s little inconveniences now and then, but normal people live with it. This shows what would really happen if you lost that self control.As such it is a counterweight to all movies where vigilantes are the heroes, always right, kill the right people for good reasons and law enforcement is described as inefficient and corrupt.
like the stereotypical Latino gangbanger Just out of curiosity, if one were to traipse through LA on foot and run into gangbangers, what variety would you expect them to be?
30 years ago? Pimping the “Angry White Man” brand has been super profitable for some time. No wonder Alex Jones makes so much money. To me, he was just another asshole.
Snowflake alert… oh such a baaaaad old white cis man hurting the feelings of other people. He is the villain, crucify him!
To be fair, all white supremacists seem cartoonish. It’s hard to believe these nutbags are real people that actually exist.