Michael Douglas is Falling Down

I watched Joel Schumacher's "Falling Down" today and figured I'd do some kind of review for it.I've never ventured into the realm of movie reviews so please forgive me if this isn't what you normally would expect from one.

To give a quick synopsis of the movie it essentially goes like this, Michael Douglas is angry, Michael Douglas smash. Done deal. That's essentially the majority of what actually happens in the movie, the main character, Bill, is frustrated with life and he finally snaps and begins to take it out on the people of L.A. At the same time it's his daughter's birthday and he wants to make it to her in time to give her a present and at the same time he decides to leave a mess of destruction behind him.

While Bill is on his rampage. the movie does a good job of making him seem almost justified for his actions, well at the first half of the movie at least but I'll be getting to that a little later. There were times in the movie where I was almost rooting for him when he was off on his spree. He never seemed like he was trying to legitimately hurt innocent people he just wanted to fight stupid shit. My favorite example of this is when Bill went into L.A's local "Whammy Burger" and asked for breakfast, but they wont serve him because breakfast ended at 11:00 o' clock. It was 11:03. Quickly enough a gun is pulled out and food is then served.

Moments like this are what made me really feel good watching this movie. Self liberation, at first, seemed to be his motivating factor. There's something about the things he did that felt...right. Throughout the movie you even begin to root for Bill. Sure, he may be doing down right terrible shit, but hes taking a stand. Hes taking a stand in a world where its hard to do so. He's telling the world to fuck off because he needs to see his daughter on her birthday. In a world where we're put down by all the dumb rules that make no use in life but to annoy us and make our lives harder, seeing something like what Bill does in this movie go down is pretty great. Its like the whole "Stick it to the man" thing. Not exactly the same but on the same level.

I found it really interesting that every character besides the 3 leading roles were almost symbolic of this idea of the stupid bullshit we deal with in life. You have a homeless man with a selfish philosophy on life, who feels entitled to everything because he is homeless. You have a wife of a cop who is obsessed wit herself and is forcing her husband into retirement. Almost every extra character that is shown in this movie is just there to help add emphasis to this idea and ultimately lead the main character into madness even further. These characters almost justify every action of the main character. These characters are so unlikable that I could imagine myself taking some kind of action against them had they existed in real life.

Now around the second half of the film Bill starts to take an even deeper dive into insanity. At first his actions were reckless and wrong but they still had some control to them, they had some lawfulness. By the end of the movie he begins to terrorize his ex-wife to a point where it looks like its going to result in her death. This felt kind of odd for me. I liked this character but then his actions started to rub me the wrong way. After a while you start to understand him a little more and understand the tragedy that is his life. Because of his anger problems he had prior to his divorce with his wife he ended up pushing away his wife and kids. Getting fired from his job adds to the misery of this character, he ends up feeling cheated and alone. Bill has lost everything. The two things he cared about the most in life were taken away from him and ended up left with nothing but the same old stupid bullshit. He brought most of his misfortune on himself, but no one helped him in anyway, or cared. Its really sad in a way.

There was one scene that almost had me in tears, it was when Bill started watching old home videos of his family before the divorce. Everyone was happy and all that bullshit but then it cut to a video where he got in an argument with his wife. It really showed that darker side of Bill. Which in turn stopped the tears from coming. I felt conflicted again, the dark side pushed me away from the very likable parts of Bill.

Another scene that was really interesting was the final showdown between Bill and, to be retired cop, Martin Prendergast. These two characters are extremely similar in that they both have the same situation in terms of having to deal with people who treat them like shit. Martin goes through shit that is just as bad as Bill's but deals with it in a diferent way. He even has a line that essentially sums it up when he says that even though he has been treated like crap it doesn't give him the right to terrorize people. I really loved how these two really contrasted from eachother but held so much similarity in the end.

Yeah...Falling Down is a pretty cool film. I recommend it.