Falling Down
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 A fuming motorist decides he's had enough and abandons his car in a traffic jam. When his request for change for the telephone falls on deaf ears he smashes up the shop. The Los Angeles Police are faced with a vigilante of a different kind.
Joel Schumacher's urban paranoid tale, Falling Down, cannot decide whether its hero is an ordinary human being or a deranged psychopath. Playing it both ways, the filmmakers also cannot determine whether we should feel sympathy or sorry for the "victimization" of their white all-American yuppie (anti) hero. Michael Douglas plays with gusto D-FENS, an Everyman whose life literally collapses and his sanity shatters during traffic jam on the freeway on an extremely hot day--as expected, the car's air-conditioner fails to work. We soon learn that D-FENS was laid off from his defense-industry position after years of devoted service and that he has hard time accepting a separation from his wife (Barbara Hershey) and daughter. The film intercuts between Douglas and Robert Duvall's LAPD detective Prendergast, a burnt-out cop determined to catch the deranged man on his last day before retirement. The narrative is structured as a road movie, a series of rampages (actually encounters) perpetrated by Douglas against a Korean grocery store owner, Latino hoodlums, etc. Thematically, Falling Down can be located somewhere between Larry Kasdan's more civilized and tame Grand Canyon and John Singleton's grittier Boyz 'N the Hood. It is a shrewd, nasty--at times wickedly funny--movie that probes nothing and challenges nobody. I will not be surprised if some people dismiss it as a variation of the Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood vigilante movies of the l970s. Indeed, the locale and the characters may be new, but the ideology is old and familiar. Set in the post-riots Los Angeles, the movie deceives us into believing that it seriously acknowledges the multi-culturalism of this supposedly city of the future. But after the first scene, it becomes clear that the highly manipulative Falling Down only pretends to have a social conscience. Indeed, this calculating movie shamelessly exploits every ethnic minority--Latinos, African-American, and Asian--for its avaricious purposes. Though well cast, all three female parts in the movie are not only small but also vastly underwritten. In a comeback role, Tuesday Weld plays Duvall's emotionally neurotic wife; Rachel Ticotin is cast as Duvall's matter-of-fact police partner; and the beautiful Barbara Hershey plays Douglas' terrified ex-wife. Falling Down taps effectively into Americans' worst collective fears and nightmares, and, considering that it's well-made and well-acted, the movie might be even more alarming than intended, because it appears to be good entertainment.  Michael Douglas ... William 'D-Fens' Foster Robert Duvall ... Detective Martin Prendergast Barbara Hershey ... Elizabeth 'Beth' Travino Tuesday Weld ... Amanda Prendergast Rachel Ticotin ... Detective Sandra Torres Frederic Forrest ... Nick, The Nazi Surplus Store Owner Lois Smith ... Mrs. Foster / William's Mother Joey Hope Singer ... Adele Foster-Travino Ebbe Roe Smith ... Guy on Freeway Michael Paul Chan ... Mr. Lee Raymond J. Barry ... Captain Yardley D.W. Moffett ... Detective Lydecker Steve Park ... Detective Brian Kimberly Scott ... Detective Jones James Keane ... Detective Keene Trailer IMDB Download Torrent 
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