Michael Douglas career was never Falling Down…
Released back in 1993 and yet over thirty years later ‘Falling Down’ remains a remarkably prescient film in an increasingly divided society. Written by actor Ebbe Roe Smith it did the rounds in Hollywood but was widely regarded as something of an incendiary too hot to handle script that couldn’t and wouldn’t be made by a liberal Hollywood. Michael Douglas changed all that. After the huge success of Fatal Attraction in 1987 and an Oscar win the same year for Wall Street he began to make some bold choices that saw him star in Ridley’s Scott’s ‘Black Rain’ with its subtext that read like a push back against the Japanese takeover of Hollywood studios’s at the time. The War of the Roses was a darkly bleak comedy about a disintegrating marriage, Basic Instinct was a big budget bonkbuster that had the gay community up in arms over it murderous bisexual lead. But nonetheless they were all box office successes. And then came Falling Down perhaps the most incendiary of them all
What sets is all off….
Starting on a sweltering Los Angeles morning, it sees a man known only as “D-Fens” (Douglas) abandon his car in a gridlocked traffic jam and sets off across the city on foot. He just wants to go home, but his path is marred by increasing everyday irritations that escalate into explosive confrontations, leaving a trail of violence in his wake. Trying to piece together these events is veteran cop Prendergast (Duvall), whose quiet final day before retirement becomes a chaotic hunt for a dangerous man on the edge. As the paths of these two very different men converge, the question of whether D-Fens is a victim of an oppressive society, or a man showing his true colours becomes unavoidable.
The quandary…
Initially there’s a lot for audiences to identify with – endless road works that never seem to get repaired, the shop keeper who won’t give change unless you buy an overpriced item, thugs who won’t let you walk through their turf which is a public park, the fast food outlet that stops serving breakfast one minute after 10.30am. That D-Fens is revealed to be going through a divorce that’s destroying him mentally when all he wants to do is see his little girl and give her a present. ‘Am I the bad guy?’ he asks in disbelief.
Falling Down was a film that divided audiences – who didn’t identify with his raging against the machine? But increasingly what fuelled his fire was ultimately unimportant minutiae that was consuming his unstable state of mind made more incendiary because he had acquired a bag full of guns as he walked across the city to his ex-wife’s house to see his little girl.
Counteracting all this was Robert Duvall’s old school cop on his last day before he retires who begins to put the pieces together about these sporadic and unexplained moments of violence popping up across the city. But he’s a man not without his own issues at home with a wife whose own mental health is just as unstable. To a degree the men were two sides of the same coin.
Those bonus features….
Falling Down remains a compelling film that maintains its ability to divide audience feelings as to whether they should sympathize with D-Fens. It’s what makes the film so re-watchable and is now released on a terrific 4K restoration with a host of tremendous bonus features that includes:
- Brand new 4K restoration by Arrow Films approved by cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak
• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
• Newly restored original lossless stereo 2.0 and DTS-HD MA 4.0 surround audio
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Archival audio commentary by director Joel Schumacher, editor Paul Hirsch, screenwriter Ebbe Roe Smith, LA Times writer Shawn Hubler, and actors Michael Douglas, Michael Paul Chan, Vondie Curtis-Hall, and Frederic Forrest
• Man on the Edge, a brand new interview with screenwriter Ebbe Roe Smith
• At War with the World, a brand new interview with composer James Newton Howard
• Going Home, a brand new location featurette revisiting the real-life Los Angeles sites used in Falling Down - Deconstructing D-Fens, an archival interview with Michael Douglas
• Original trailer
• Image gallery
• Collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by film critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Simon Ward
The archival commentary is well worth a listen and one of the discs highlights is the new interview with Ebbe Roe Smith. Director Joel Schumacher is no longer with us but what would have rounded off what is already a good array of features is an interview with Douglas himself and a retrospective on how he now regards the film.
But that aside this is one of Douglas and Schumacher’s best and arguably most controversial films that is as relevant today as it was back in 1993 and is worthy of reappraisal for audiences who might have missed it on it’s initial release.
related feature : Chuck Russell on making ‘Eraser’ : Behind the scenes of the Arnold Schwarzenegger classic
related feature : Joel Schumacher – OBITUARY
Here’s the trailer…..
