7/6 #3
Falling Down (1993)
One sweltering morning, while stuck in the impenetrable gridlock of Los Angeles,crew- and clean-cut William Foster (Douglas), an unemployed defense worker whose ex-wife (Hershey) refuses to let him near his daughter for her sixth birthday, gets out of his car and abandons it on the freeway. His unfocused rage leads him across the city and through encounters of escallating violence and anger involving Korean shopkeepers, Latino gangs, clueless teenage lunch crews at a burger joint, and gun-toting ........ pawn shop proprietors. Trying to piece the puzzle of sporadic violence together is cop Pendergast (Duvall), a man who's had his own share of knocks and now simply wants to get through his last day on the force so he can hit the road with his wife in their motorhome. Considered by some to be a "Network" for the 1990s, replete with a protagonist whose actions are not excusable but are, at least, understandable. The film operates on a much more subtle level than most of director Joel Schumacher's ("St. Elmo's Fire," "Flatliners") efforts, aided, mostly, by the nuanced performances of Douglas, as a man whose confusion at the world's insensitivity is plainly written on his face, and Duvall, whose character bears a striking resemblence to Foster sans the emotional snap. Unfortunately, the script by first time writer Ebbe Roe Smith does not always know when to stop and confuses audiences with its character turnarounds (is Foster a generally good guy or isn't he?) and itself with its sometimes wishy-washy purpose. Cathartic, exciting, and tragic, all the same.
Falling Down (1993)
One sweltering morning, while stuck in the impenetrable gridlock of Los Angeles,crew- and clean-cut William Foster (Douglas), an unemployed defense worker whose ex-wife (Hershey) refuses to let him near his daughter for her sixth birthday, gets out of his car and abandons it on the freeway. His unfocused rage leads him across the city and through encounters of escallating violence and anger involving Korean shopkeepers, Latino gangs, clueless teenage lunch crews at a burger joint, and gun-toting ........ pawn shop proprietors. Trying to piece the puzzle of sporadic violence together is cop Pendergast (Duvall), a man who's had his own share of knocks and now simply wants to get through his last day on the force so he can hit the road with his wife in their motorhome. Considered by some to be a "Network" for the 1990s, replete with a protagonist whose actions are not excusable but are, at least, understandable. The film operates on a much more subtle level than most of director Joel Schumacher's ("St. Elmo's Fire," "Flatliners") efforts, aided, mostly, by the nuanced performances of Douglas, as a man whose confusion at the world's insensitivity is plainly written on his face, and Duvall, whose character bears a striking resemblence to Foster sans the emotional snap. Unfortunately, the script by first time writer Ebbe Roe Smith does not always know when to stop and confuses audiences with its character turnarounds (is Foster a generally good guy or isn't he?) and itself with its sometimes wishy-washy purpose. Cathartic, exciting, and tragic, all the same.
