Falling Down (1993)
Joel Schumacher

Falling Down was released during a crossroads for America. A new President had been sworn in to help save us from a recession (sound familiar?), but the movie was filmed prior to the 1992 election. The last remnants of Reagan-era politics lingered while the country faced an uncertain future. Just beginning were the days of reality television, acceptance of AIDS, and home computing. These facts highlight the age of the film, but the background themes are surprisingly relevant when considering America’s current military operations (Iraq) and economic plight (recession).

This timeframe is therefore appropriate for protagonist and aging defense engineer, William “D-Fens” Foster. We first see D-Fens (so nicknamed after his vanity license plate) in gridlocked LA traffic. The camera alternates between D-Fens’ facial expressions and his viewpoint – bumper stickers of Jesus telling us, “He Died For Our Sins”, symbolizing moral righteousness; a black child leaning out of a school bus with an American flag, symbolizing hypocrisy; and finally a fly inside his car which refuses to be swatted; that itching lack of fulfillment.

We learn bits and pieces about D-Fens during the journey. Schumacher interlaces scenes of Detective Prendergast, who ends up chasing D-Fens on his last day on the job (clichés abound in this film). We learn through these scenes that D-Fens is unemployed, divorced with no custody of his child, and is emotionless around his mother, with whom he now lives. The more we learn about D-Fens, we realize Schumacher doesn’t offer an everyman - D-Fens is a tragic character, and it’s obvious he’s ready to snap. D-Fens evolves from a sympathetic everyman to near-lunatic, and the movie follows those steps superbly as each encounter of his becomes more violent.

After simply walking away from standstill traffic during the opening scene, a fellow commuter yells, “Where do you think you’re going??” Everyone else owns stresses in their lives, but instead of walking away from the grind and figuring out how to make a better future, they accusingly jeer as he says he’s “going home”. He’s clearly not allowed to remove himself from an uncomfortable situation; he must follow the crowd. Everyone he meets from this point becomes an enemy; that jeering commuter telling him to get back in line. D-Fens lives in a cruel world which has no concern for thinking ahead; a crowd which believes in herding themselves to work every day because everyone else is doing it too. Breaking away from this gridlock, D-Fens takes the symbolic path less traveled, and we know right away he’s in for a struggle. The context of the movie, an unhealthy economy and uncertain leadership, highlights these ideas well.

The ante is upped each time an enemy arises. This can be seen clearly in D-Fens’ trade-up in weaponry, as if he’s in a video game – trading the bat from a scuffle for a knife in the next scene; upgrading the knife to a sack of guns after another encounter, and eventually walking through Los Angeles using a rocket launcher. He has become his own defense outfit, armed to the teeth with no one to answer to – a microcosm of America at this critical juncture: many weapons, headed toward a destination where he’s no longer welcome, and having passed the point of no return in pursuit of an undefined goal. Schumacher succeeds in capturing an uncertain America coming out of the Cold War with nothing to show for its supposed victory and no clear direction.

This point of no return comes when he crosses paths with neo-Nazi surplus store owner, Nick. Nick hides D-Fens from a police officer and locks the door when she leaves, choosing to buddy up to D-Fens and offering a rocket launcher and some Nazi memorabilia in support of what he mistakenly believes is D-Fens’ cause. Things don’t go well when D-Fens simply wants to leave without accepting Nick’s gifts; a struggle ensues, and D-Fens silences Nick and murders him. His appearance changes appropriately thereafter, with nondescript military gear and a bag full of guns replacing his white dress shirt and tie.

Though the character development is choppy in this film, Schumacher does a good job of painting D-Fens as over the edge. He becomes dark and consumed with rage, where before, he appeared mainly to be fighting back, if escalating arguments he didn’t start to unnecessary extremes. Prendergast catches up to him for a final confrontation which shows a moment of clarity on the part of D-Fens, tired of fighting and acquiescing to his fate.

The film is a good idea – gritty and realist, no glitz or glamour. The characters and extras all wear plain clothing; city workers act as we would expect when one holds an oversized stop sign to D-Fens’ chest telling him to go around a construction site. We see a deeply flawed and disturbed D-Fens evolving as an unlikely bully – some of the people he meets along the way may have deserved a little bullying, but when an old man is left dead on the golf course due to heart attack as a mocking D-Fens towers over him, there’s nothing left for the audience to gain, and the rest of the movie collapses into the predictable. As humorous as Schumacher makes these scenes and as easy as it is to cheer him on at times, the mission he’s on early in the film seems to be to alert the every day consumer to minor annoyances, but then asking us to look deeper after we see the flaws beneath his character. In this sense, the film is ultimately inconsistent, with differing views on what Schumacher intended, but provides valuable insight into America in the early 1990s.

Falling Down, by Joel Schumacher