In 1993, a few years before the ugly head of Batman and Robin would make his name notorious, Joel Shumacher made a film called Falling Down. Falling Down, in my opinion, would be the most relevant piece of film that Joel ever had a hand in making a cinematic reality. For those who are unfamiliar, it followed the meltdown of a recently unemployed man (Michael Douglas) as he treks across Los Angeles so he can attend his daughter's birthday. However, D-Fens (as he is come to be known as later on in the film) is not our hero. To put it lightly, he's off his rocker, and was never a great guy, to begin with. See, he once had it all: A good paying government job, as well as a beautiful wife and daughter. Unfortunately, D-Fens had quite a temper which led to a messy divorce, and a restraining order placed against him. The final straw was losing his job. Caught in a traffic jam during a sweltering heat wave, he has enough and abandons his car. "I'm going home!", he proclaims to the driver behind him and walks away. "Home" is the house owned by his ex-wife across the city.
Remember, this movie was made in the early 90s; Los Angeles was a very volatile place at the time. This is not a hike people would advise, especially when you're a walking Dilbert caracature. Incidentally enough, this movie was partially filmed during the LA riots. A lot of the racial tensions of that era stand out in this film.
Not many films from the 90s stand the test of time. Not only does Falling Down withstand this test, I think this film is even more relevant now than it was 25 years ago.
D-Fens is the apitome of white privilage
The character arc for D-Fens goes from mildly sympathetic to downright disturbing pretty quick.
He's a guy who had and lost it all. Instead of taking ownership of his problems he blames it on everyone else.
Instead of dealing with his inadequacies and getting help he chooses scapegoats. Minorities, the homeless, the wealthy, the very society around him.
However, he is a victim as well. Not a very sympathetic one mind you, but a victim none the lese. He's stuck in the same institutional meat grinder as everyone else. A victim of an indifferent system that preys on people's ignorance and need for creating divisiveness.
The man is a walking anachronism with his black framed glasses, crew cut, shirt and tie. He looks like someone dragged out of the 1950s. By contrast with the world around him, he sticks out like a sore thumb. The world has moved on without him. Instead of adapting he has become irrelevant.
This is most poignent to his interactions with Mr. Lee the convenience store owner. Complaining about Lee's inability to "learn the language" and price gouging.
Mr. Lee is the American dream in motion: an immigrant from Korea that owns his own business. His prices are steep, sure, but that's the nature of capitalism is it not?
Sure, 85 cents for a can of Coke in 1990s money is pretty steep, but not outrageous enough that you should feel D-Fens is justified to bust up his store?
D-Fens was a dick not to settle with breaking a bill. Sure the scene presents itself as though our protagonist only had a dollar to his name. However, he later manages to buy lunch at Whammy Burger, buy a snow globe for his daughter, and even had enough to consider buying boots at the army surplus store. So his reaction to Mr. Lee was blown out of proportion, and seems more racially motovated than anything.
This makes his argument with Nick the Neo-Nazi surplus store owner a bit hypocritical. Granted D-Fens doesn't glorify genocide, but he certainly has some racism in him. Are you really any better than someone because your mutual sin is less extreme than the other? Racist is racist. Just because you are uncomfortable with people who take it farther than you doesn't make your behavior any more justified.
Then there is the scene where the African-American man is arrested for protesting outside of a bank. You know, the "not economically viable" guy. D-Fens feels a kinsmanship with the guy, especially after he gets arrested. This is reinforced by the fact that Mr. Not Economically Viable is wearing the exact same outfit.
Later on, after terrorizing a grounds keeper and his family, he uses the same line. He also is not Economically Viable. Granted we don't know the black man's back story, but I somehow doubt the two could relate to each other. D-Fens used to design weapons for the military, he had the idealic nuclear family. What does he know about that guys story? Reader, you may accuse me of stretching it too far, but that seems like a bit of appropriation to me.
D-Fens is not any different than someone who preaches All Lives Matter. Sure, nobody should have to deal with hardship and persecution just for existing, but saying he is like Mr. Not Economically Viable is as ignorant as saying he's nothing like Neo-Nazi Nick.
LA Then is Like the Internet Now
One feeling I get watching this film is crushing claustrophobia. Right from the word go this move closes in the walls. This is no more apparent than at the start of this film. The Fillini inspired traffic jam scene. We see D-Fens trapped in the traffic jam surrounded by all these conflicting situations. The bumper stickers (Jesus Saves, How's My Driving? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT etc), the screaming yuppies on the cell phone, the woman slatering lipstick on her face, the lenoleum salesman who likes COPS, all centered around a billboard of a graffito of a man in the clevage of a woman screaming "Help Me!". It's a suffocating atmosphere of conflicting ideas and emotions. How is this different from my social media feed?
Then later on, the signs: I LOVE YOU DADDY, DYING OF AIDS, WILL WORK FOR FOOD, murals of Jesus, and tags on every surface. This culminated by the thick "fog", which isn't pollution, but smoke from the LA Riots. Is D-Fens not the callous eyes that we view any sort of charity in the online world? You can't blame him, there are hucksters out there. Just look at the "little drummer boy" Vietnam vet. Denied money and gets pissed off when all he gets is a briefcase with a sandwich and an apple inside.
It's overwhealming, and here we have D-Fens fighting to stay in his intellectual bubble. Straying away from things that challenege his moral center and gravitating toward things that reinforce his belief system. What he can't process, he tries to appropriate into his own narrative (I AM NOT ECONOMICALLY VIABLE). But that comfort bubble end up colliding with the polar opposite, Nick the Neo-Nazi again. There are no safe places for an individual point of view. It's either them or us. If that's not a perfect metaphor for the internet, I don't know what is.
How is the volitile environment any different than the internet today? It's a mindfield of conflicting ideas and we all push away against the ideas that make us uncomfortable while cloying for things that defines who we are. Yet at the same time, we're constantly looking over our shoulder. We're all worried about people on both sides of the argument to challenge our way of thinking.
Neo-Nazi Nick is the Alt-Right Nightmare Come True
Among all the human misery in this movie, Nick the Neo-Nazi is the most uncomfortable reality of humanity. The legacy of hatred that, even today, still thrives no matter how much light we shine on it.
With the resurgance of Nationalism, white supremacy, amd "racial purity", Nick represents all the things we still need to work on and are sadly losing ground.
I wish I can look at the scene in the army surplus store and consider it as much of an anachronism as D-Fens being a 50's characature.
The sad reality is that Nick's Nazi memorabilia cache has gone from the back rooms of the world to the search engines of the internet today. All you need is Google and working fingers and you can find it.
We live in a world where the most hateful things you can think of are acessable at your finger tips. If there is any victor in this movie, sadly, it's Nick. Sure he's dead, but regardless of number of sunglass displays that get knocked can not easily erase such a deep hatred.
White People Problems, Am I Right?
If there is any moment in this film that exemplifies white privilage, it is the Whammy Burger scene. D-Fens wants breakfast but he is four minutes too late. So he holds the place up at gun point for breakfast.. then changes his mind, the complains about hpw the burger looks like shit.
In this day and age of 24 hour breakfast at McDonalds it looses its edge. But it still has some credence when you compare the burger on display and the one he purchases. Of all the people who raises their hand whem D-Fens asks what is wrong with "this picture" it is the African-American kid.
You never hear what the kid has to say, but this is poignant. In our health concious world, fast food is the devil. But what about the people that can only afford Burger King?
Until his personal life fell apart, I am quite sure D-Fens could aford balanced meals for his family. Even then, when that was all over and his mother -- with her glass blown figurine fetish -- made him wholesome meals.
He knows nothing about dredging money up to buy soggy shit burgers for his family anymore than I do.
The Cops Don't Believe a Woman
The most troubling part about this movie is how they treat D-Fen's ex-wife.
She is frightened by her ex-husband and he is calling her throughout the course of the day. She calls the cops, twice. While the first officer is somewhat sympathetic, there is nothing he can do. When she calls her again, the female cop blows off her concern.
This is the saddest reality of this film. 25 years later and we still don't entirely believe women. It takes an almost retired cop, on his last day to put it all together and stop D-Fens, but even that was an unrelated fluke.
The System is Fucking Us
"They lie to everybody, even the fish"
At the climax of this film, D-Fens whines about how "THEY" lied to him. If there is a point to the whole movie is that the system fucks everyone ever, and it's hoping you will blame the people who either have more or are preceived to have an easy ride.
It's this institutional schism that divides amd distracts us from the real enemy. The system.
At the end of the day, D-Fens is not entirely wrong in some ways. Unfortunately he is such a flawed character that he is distracted from the main reason of his hardship. He is an angey mentally ill white guy and he is blaming everything on people who have struggled more than he has.
Even his most cathartic moment, when he causes the rich golfer to have a heart attack loses its momentum when you disect it. Yes, the guy is obscenely rich to play at a private golf course, but he's a symptom of the problem, not thr cause of it. As cathartic as it might be to watch him die of a heart attack in a monument of oppulance, it is fleeting. Yes, he was rich, and he enjoyed the advantage. But this is just the polar opposite of blaming the poor people for your problems. It is an escapism. It is blaming a scapegoat. We are masters of our own destinies, to blame our short comings on individuals is short sighted. The only thing that puts up roadblocks is they system. However, it doesn't victimize just the individual. It is nebulous and far reaching and effects us all. It wants you to blame others for what it is doing to you.
What I am saying is D-Fens was wrong for the right reasons. He sees the systemic problems, but he lets those cloud over his own personal responsibility and lashes out at the wrong people.
What makes D-Fens timeless is that he represents all the misplaced anger in our society. In this dog eat dog world none of us are free from sin, and we should take accountability for our problems and have empathy for those who are struggling just as much, if not more than us.
The LA Riots
Like I said, this movie was made during the LA Riots. The Riots even interrupted the production. It is the unseen backdrop of this movie. We're watching an angry white guy rampage through LA while an entire community of people protest about real inequities.
The whole time D-Fens is ranting and raving he is completely oblivious of the bigger picture and what is happening a few blocks away from his temper tantrum.
He's not any different than someone like Adam Lanza, or Seung-Hui Cho, or any of the other mentally ill maniacs who end up being sound bites on the nightly news. He's not a hero. He's not a False Flag. He also knows nothing about the real problems in our society.
Falling Down is a mirror of our times because while there are real problems out there, we're too focused on the white idiot who can get guns and go on a senseless murder spree. D-Fens is a symptom of our societal problems but also a distraction from the real issues that affect us all.