Viking Night: Falling Down
By Bruce Hall
June 13, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
That's why I find a film like Falling Down so interesting. You know the one, where Michael Douglas plays a guy who flips out on the 405 one day, and then embarks on the world's most ironic crime spree. You'd think a movie like that would be more enduring. You'd think that as obsessed as we all are with violence, hyperbole and unfortunate stereotypes, Falling Down would still be a pretty popular movie.
But you never hear anyone talking about it anymore. You don't hear about people "Pulling a Foster" and coming to work with a gorilla suit in their briefcase. You don't hear the nerds down in IT dropping quotes from it the way they do with Monty Python, or Pulp Fiction.
Maybe that's because while Falling Down is a better movie than it has any right to be, it is also an unfrozen caveman, making broad generalizations and uninformed statements about a narrow set of variables that belong to a bygone time and place. Its commentary is more forced than funny, more preposterous than prophetic. But I've gotten ahead of myself. I've written my closing arguments first. Even worse, I've gone and tried to apply cogent analysis to a Joel Schumacher film.
So, let's take it from the top.
William Foster (Michael Douglas) cracks up right before our eyes. We see a middle-aged white man in horn rimmed glasses stewing in a good old fashioned southern California traffic jam. As the camera pans around him, we find out almost everything we need to know about him. His haircut is 25 years out of date. There's an American flag in the background, and a telltale parking permit in his window. The sounds emanating from the cars around him hint at unruly kids, immigrants, and loud people on what passed for cell phones in 1993.
A cynic would say you can almost hear society breaking down. A skeptic would say there's no hope, no reason to go on living the same way anymore. Well, Foster is both of those things. So without warning, he steps from his car and wanders across the freeway - off the grid and into a wonderland of insanity. We've all felt like doing this at one point or another, but you and I know there would be consequences.
Foster knows this too. He just gives exactly zero shits about it.
At the same time, grizzled detective Martin Prendergast (Robert Duvall) happens to be stuck in his own car about 30 meters away, and he's got problems of his own. Like most movie cops, he's one day away from retirement. Like most movie cops, he blames himself for the death of a precocious child. His wife is a shrill, controlling harpy and because of this, most of his peers think he's a coward. Still, he maintains a Zen-like comportment. He's conflicted about retirement, as though he knows he's destined for great things.
So it's really no coincidence when Prendergast takes it upon himself to help move Foster's car from the road. Their stories remain intertwined until the very end of the film.
Meanwhile, Foster gets himself into trouble at a Korean grocer when he tries to make change for a phone call and ends up taking a socio-political stand by redecorating the place with a baseball bat. It’s a little jarring, and at this point in the movie you can be forgiven for thinking you're looking at a bigoted sociopath. Things get more complex as Foster unleashes a 55 gallon drum of Crazy White Man on a pair of gang members who stop him on his way through the Barrio.
Suddenly, the same guy who just went off on an Asian guy for being Asian is now taking a stand against gang violence. Once again, you're not sure what kind of person you're looking at. Is he racist? Is he nuts? Is he an avenging angel or a bloodthirsty demon? All you know for sure is that a guy who looks like Glenn Beck's accountant smashes up a couple of Mexicans and then sidesteps the world's most incompetent drive by shooting.
As the LAPD is flooded with reports of a disgruntled white man imitating Samuel L Jackson, they choose to do remarkably little about it. Even when Foster shoots up a fast food joint for not serving him breakfast after 11, the police throw all of two detectives and a bucket of chicken at the problem. Now, Prendergast realizes he may have pushed this guy's car off the road a few hours earlier. And since it's against Cop Law to listen to anything a guy says once he's announced his retirement, it's up to Prendergast and his partner to put the pieces together before it's too late.
That would make an interesting enough story, except for the fact that Falling Down can't decide what kind of movie it is. On the one hand, it's the parallel journey of two men at a crossroads in life. Foster sees himself as a victim of the perceived social decay that has corrupted America. Prendergast may be a walking cliché, but he's also a guy who has spent the best years of his life dutifully punishing himself for something that wasn't his fault. That's also trite, but it's an important contrast. One man makes excuses. The other tries to make changes.
On the other hand, Ebbe Roe Smith's screenplay attempts to make hay of just about any and every social ill facing America at the twilight of the 20th Century. And it does so through the avatar of William Foster. This has the effect of making Falling Down seem, at its lowest points, like a particularly dull Grand Theft Auto mission. Sometimes it's dramatically expedient, such as the scene with the grocer. Other times it's humorous, such as Foster's rant about the deceptive nature of fast food commercials as he pays for a cheeseburger with hot lead.
But it's excessive to the point where it needlessly dilutes the story. Foster already has an interesting back story. Trying to also make him the standard bearer for anyone who hates sitting in traffic trivializes him. Still, Falling Down struck a chord with the media when it came out, prompting a breathless national dialogue about the plight of the middle class white male and America's vanishing Anglo-Saxon hegemony.
Really? Are you kidding me? Are we watching the same film?
William Foster is a victim all right, but he's a victim of the same economic and political forces that affect millions of people every time there's a recession. But this isn't really explored until the end of the film. The rest of the time we're led to believe that banks are evil because they don't give loans to nice guys, all homeless people are lying bastards and that fast food restaurants are cruel because they don't have pancake batter ready at two in the afternoon. It's a smorgasbord of pointless discourse that goes nowhere.
But what saves Falling Down - and I mean this because I do like the movie - is Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall. In the hands of lesser actors their roles might have come across as lurid or laughable. But you buy into them, and when Foster's Big Reveal comes at the beginning of the third act - when he finally admits the truth about himself TO himself - you feel for him (a little). Prendergast fares less well, but Duvall's avuncular charm makes you believe in him anyway, just like you did when it was Danny Glover's last day on the job.
The movie is a relic, to be sure. It belongs in a vault somewhere along with black jeans, Steve Urkel, Spice Girls, and everything else we left behind in the Flannel Decade. But you always find something in a time capsule that makes you pause, reflect, and wonder how our ancestors survived without the modern luxuries we enjoy today. Falling Down is a fun trip to the past, and I don't mind the visit. I'm just glad we've all moved on.