The Problematics: ‘Falling Down’ at 30, A Proto-MAGA Parable Starring A Downsized Michael Douglas

When the prolific (and ever dishy) American director Joel Schumacher died in 2020, for an appreciation in Decider I characterized his 1993 suspense drama Falling Down as “a more or less alarmist thriller.” This year marks the 30^th anniversary of the movie’s release. Looking back on the movie itself and taking in its reception over the years is a little bit surprising. 

The movie, written by Ebbe Roe Smith, aimed to be a more-provocative-than-usual “forgotten man” tale. Michael Douglas stars as William Foster, an ordinary guy broken by the system, and by his own attachment to it. He becomes a marauder through L.A. neighborhoods both blighted and privileged after he chooses to walk out on a traffic jam so as to “go home.” His increasingly frazzled state, and the weapons he manages to gather on his journey, provide all manner of sequences suggesting a “this used to be a proper country” state of mind. Given the way the movie underhandedly supports this proposition (“sure, it’s racist to look askance at Asian shopkeepers, but do they have attitude or what?” Is how one scene goes, for a bit) there’s a not inconsiderable irony in Foster’s last question: “I’m the bad guy?”

The first surprise I had while researching this movie is the fact that it’s one of the best-reviewed works of Schumacher’s oft-lambasted directorial career. (Not to mention that there’s even been at least one book written about it.) Roger Ebert noted “Some will even find it racist because the targets of the film’s hero are African American, Latino, and Korean—with a few Whites thrown in for balance. Both of these approaches represent a facile reading of the film, which is actually about a great sadness, which turns into madness, and which can afflict anyone who is told, after many years of hard work, that he is unnecessary and irrelevant… What is fascinating about the Douglas character, as written and played, is the core of sadness in his soul.” Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said that Douglas’ performance had “a searing poignancy that illuminates uncomfortable truths without excusing the character.” He continued: “Schumacher could have exploited those tabloid headlines about solid citizens going berserk. Instead, the timely, gripping Falling Down puts a human face on a cold statistic and then dares us to look away.” Ooh, dares us, does it.

I think Hal Hinson of the Washington Post was more accurate at the time when he accused Schumacher and company of wanting to have their cake and eat it too with respect to Douglas’ character, who’s referred to frequently as “D-FENS” after his vanity license plate. (You see, before he was made redundant, he worked as a defense engineer. Which kind of makes the whole “comedy” bit late in the movie where a Black kid on a bicycle teaches him how to work a rocket launcher a little nonsensical. Anyway.)

The movie begins with a noxious traffic jam straight out of Fellini’s 8 ½, but because Foster is a real guy in a real traffic jam and not a frustrated film director having a dream, it’s worse. And so he snaps. (There’s a demonic Garfield toy peering out one filthy car’s window.) He leaves his car and walks, which as the song told us, nobody does in L.A. His actions are noticed by a police detective named Prendergrast, played by Robert Duvall. And of course it’s his last day on the force and of course there are events in his past that have made him gun shy and of course several other cliches that are made less nettlesome because of Duvall’s superb performance. 

As Foster wends his way through barrio streets at first, the movie begins its double game. The bodega he enters to get some change for a pay phone (so he can hassle his ex-wife! Who’s got a restraining order on him! But it’s his daughter’s birthday and he wants to “go home!”) is run by not just a Korean guy, but a Korean guy of truculent mien. Who charges eighty-five cents for a can of Coke. That sounds like a bargain today! But Foster rages that he won’t even get a quarter in change, and after all that’s what he needs for the phone. After complaining “You come to my country, you take my money, you don’t even have the grace to speak my language,” Foster gives the guy (Michael Paul Chan) a lecture on price gouging while knocking stuff off shelves. Remember Chris Rock’s “I don’t agree with O.J. but I understand him?” bit? SO much of Falling Down is that, but for older white guys.

However.  This movie ultimately is not, as it happens, a trial balloon for MAGA types, unless you actually buy the argument that MAGA types really were moved by “economic insecurity” rather than virulent racism and general status insecurity. To underscore this point, Foster, after scoring two big victories against Latino gang bangers, and walking away with a gym bag full of arms as his prize, goes into a sort of army surplus store. There, he learns that its owner, a very overstated Frederic Forrest, is a white supremacist Nazi-lover who had a collection of vile memorabilia in the back of his shop. Before letting Foster in on his treasure, he kicks a gay couple out of the store, insults the female police office (Rachel Ticotin, as Duvall’s partner) tracking Foster down, and does other anti-social stuff.

“I’m with you! We’re the same, you and me,” Forrest says to Douglas, Frank-Booth-style. “We’re not the same. I’m an American, you’re a sick asshole,” counter Douglas. Well glad we cleared that up. 

The most famous scene in the movie takes place at a fictional fast-food place called Whammyburger, where Foster attempts to order breakfast, but is told he can’t get it, because the place switches to the lunch menu at 11:30 a.m., and it is now 11:33 a.m. In addition he is treated with broad condescension by both cashier and manager. This is a kind of reversal of the “Guaranteed Best Breakfast” scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which results in poor Brad getting fired. Nobody gets fired here; instead Foster takes an automatic rifle out of his gym bag and (inadvertently) fires it into the ceiling. 

What makes the scene interesting now is how everybody in the restaurant freezes in terror when the weapon is produced. Nowadays, in certain states — the “open carry” ones — you see beefy guys going into coffee shops and sandwich shops armed to the teeth, with spare magazines strapped to their backs, and I guess the etiquette is, you just don’t say a word or react as all, you just act like that’s normal. I wonder. If you were to say to one of those guys, “Clearly you’re trying to compensate for your mounting feelings of impotence and irrelevance in contemporary society,” what do you think they would do? Shoot you? As it happens, after firing his gun, Foster apologizes and tries to get everyone in the restaurant to relax. Then he complains about the quality of the food. You see his point? NOTHING WORKS.

In a very writerly move, the movie’s title is evoked by costar Tuesday Weld, who sings “London Bridge is falling down” to husband Duvall. The lyrics have extra meaning for them, because upon retirement the couple is to move to Lake Havasu, Arizona, where London Bridge, or at least an earlier version of it, is situated today. One of this movie’s worst sins is its misuse of the great Weld, de-glammed and playing a fiercely neurotic harridan. Duvall’s character is meant to represent a more reasonable Forgotten Man than Douglas’. He reclaims his relevance by telling his wife to shut up on the one hand and punching out a colleague who dares to dis his wife on the other. Okay then. 

Expertly shot by Andrezj Bartowiak (you really feel the swelter of the L.A. heat, although the movie is not nearly as sweaty as Schumacher’s 1996 A Time To Kill) and sharply edited by Paul Hirsch, Falling Down is one of Schumacher’s more technically accomplished films. While his severe haircut does about 20 percent of his job for him, Douglas fully commits to both the noxiousness and the ostensible poignancy of his character. (Barbara Hershey, not quite as tamped down as Weld, plays his estranged wife.) For all the visual signifiers the movie presents to underscore the fact that Foster is in the wrong, the movie also does frequently give in to all forms of cranky white guy wish fulfillment. More than one scene demonstrates that it can be very rewarding to be able to flash a gun at anyone who annoys you. Shuts them right up, a lot of the time. The jerk with the gold chain who is agitated about Foster taking too much time in a phone booth. The two Abe-Simpson-like rich cartoons on the golf course, too. In granting Foster a measure of humanity the movie denies these personages theirs. Not to get too hippy-dippy about it, but that’s why Falling Down and movies like it wind up being part of the problem they’re trying to lament. 

Veteran critic Glenn Kenny reviews‎ new releases at RogerEbert.com, the New York Times, and, as befits someone of his advanced age, the AARP magazine. He blogs, very occasionally, at Some Came Running and tweets, mostly in jest, at @glenn__kenny. He is the author of the acclaimed 2020 book Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas, published by Hanover Square Press.