Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 27, 1993 TAG: 9302270284
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`FALLING DOWN' WILL BE CONTROVERSIAL
The trailers for "Falling Down" make it look like a "Revenge of the Nerds" comedy for adults.Michael Douglas plays a guy with a pocket protector and a flattop who acts out fantasies that many of us may have entertained when confronted by fears of mugging, the frustrations of dealing with smug clerks and overall rudeness in today's society.
Indeed, this is the way writer Ebbe Roe Smith and director Joel Schumacher shrewdly set us up for a much more serious movie that examines the mental breakdown of one man set against the backdrop of a pervasive societal breakdown. This ostensible cop thriller is more effective in exploring the deterioration of the quality of contemporary life and the souring of the American Dream than the more ponderous "Grand Canyon."
By making audiences relate to the Michael Douglas character through his glib sarcasm, his apparently logical observations and his tendency to go ballistic when faced with impolite behavior, the filmmakers force them to confront their own prejudices and violent instincts.
Douglas isn't a Charles Bronson from the "Death Wish" movies, he's Travis Bickel from "Taxi Driver," a psycho fueled by a sense of injustice.
The movie begins as William Foster sits in a traffic jam, becoming increasingly frustrated by this melanoma of modern technology. He wants to go home for his daughter's birthday and finally abandons his car to hot foot it on back.
The filmmakers have concocted a version of Xenophon's "Anabasis," pitting this urban warrior against a number of real and imagined bad guys as he works his way back home. There are gang members and a despicable neo-Nazi, among others. They're portrayed as broad stereotypes but not for lack of imagination on the part of the filmmakers. As Foster, played with scary precision by Douglas, works his way closer to home, the transgressions of his victims become increasingly minor as he becomes increasingly more violent.
And waiting at home is the ex-wife who fears him and the little girl the courts have restrained him from seeing. Barbara Hershey plays the ex-wife, and she makes it clear that Foster isn't a middle-class hero but a sick and dangerous sociopath. He's the kind of person who could lose his job and murder his co-workers - or his family.
Meanwhile, Robert Duvall plays Prendergast, a cop working the last day before his retirement. He, too, has been wounded by life, but his response has been one of decency but also submission. The Foster case gives him the chance to become the kind of policeman he once was.
This will be a controversial movie. The filmmakers take a big risk by injecting it with as much humor as they do. Viewers may argue over its purpose. In a worst-case scenario, some may regard Foster as a hero even at the end. But as Prendergast points out: Foster is the bad guy.
Falling Down: ***
A Warner release at Salem Valley 8 (389-0444) and Tanglewood Mall CInema (989-6165). Rated R for violence and language; 105 minutes.