Falling Down

1993 Drama

It's just not William Foster's (Michael Douglas) day. Laid off from his defense job, Foster gets stuck in the middle of the mother of all traffic jams. Desirous of attending his daughter's birthday party at the home of his ex-wife (Barbara Hershey), Foster abandons his car and begins walking, encountering one urban humiliation after another (the Korean shopkeeper who obstinately refuses to give change is the worst of the batch). He also slowly unravels mentally, finally snapping at a fast-food restaurant that refuses to serve him breakfast because it's "too late." Running amok with an arsenal of weapons at the ready, Foster -- also known as "D-FENS" because of his vanity license plate -- rapidly becomes a source of terror to some, a folk hero to others. It's up to reluctant cop Prendergast (Robert Duvall), on the eve of his retirement, to bring D-FENS down. more..

Director: Joel Schumacher

Starring: Michael Douglas,Robert Duvall, Barbara Hershey, Rachel Ticotin, Tuesday Weld

 22 Reviews  3 Awards

Reviews

  • A few times every year, Hollywood makes a mistake, violates formula and actually makes a great picture. Falling Down is one of the great mistakes of 1993, a film too good and too original to win any Oscars but one bound to be remembered in years to come as a true and ironic statement about life in our time.

    Mick LaSalle - The San Francisco Chronicle

    19 January 2013

  • Falling Down is the most interesting, all-out commercial American film of the year to date, and one that will function much like a Rorschach test to expose the secrets of those who watch it.

    Vincent Canby - The New York Times

    19 January 2013

  • Falling Down does a good job of representing a real feeling in our society today. It would be a shame if it is seen only on a superficial level.

    Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

    19 January 2013

  • 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.

    Peter Travers - Rolling Stone

    19 January 2013

  • The filmmakers aren't out to make a crisp action fantasy like the vigilante movies of the 1970s. Their disaffected man has no specific enemy or at least not one that he acknowledges; modern life is his enemy. This realization hits him one day and he begins to act on it, spontaneously. He's an existential vigilante.

    Julie Salamon - The Wall Street Journal

    19 January 2013

Awards

  • Andrzej Bartkowiak

    Camerimage (1993)

     

  • Joel Schumacher

    Cannes Film Festival (1993)

     

  • Best Motion Picture

    Edgar Allan Poe Awards (1994)

Lists

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