FemaleFirst.co.uk: DVD: Falling Down [1992] [DVD] [1993]

Falling Down [1992] [DVD] [1993]
enlarge	Director: Joel Schumacher Actors: Michael Douglas, Robert Duvall, Barbara Hershey, Tuesday Weld, Rachel Ticotin Studio: Warner Home Video Category: DVD List Price: ~~£13.99~~ Buy New: £2.00 as of 22/11/2009 00:09 GMT details You Save: £11.99 (86%) New (22) Used (16) from £1.37 Seller: great_entertainment Rating: 29 reviews Sales Rank: 5228 Format: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), German (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Italian (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled), Dutch (Subtitled), Arabic (Subtitled), Romanian (Subtitled), Bulgarian (Subtitled), Italian (Dubbed) Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over Region: 2 Discs: 1 Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Number Of Discs: 1 Running Time: 108 Minutes Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2 Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6 EAN: 7321900126489 ASIN: B00004R84K Theatrical Release Date: February 26, 1993 Release Date: June 1, 2006 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days


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Editorial Reviews: Amazon.co.uk Review iFalling Down/i, about a downsized engineer (Michael Douglas) who goes ballistic, triggered a media avalanche of stories in the USA about middle-class white rage when it was released in 1993. In fact, it's nothing more than a manipulative, violent melodrama about one geek's meltdown. Douglas, complete with pocket protector, nerd glasses, crewcut and short-sleeved white shirt, gets stuck in traffic one day near downtown LA and proceeds to just walk away from his car--and then lose it emotionally. Everyone he encounters rubs him the wrong way--and a fine lot of stereotypes they are, from threatening ghetto punks to rude convenience store owners to a creepy white supremacist--and he reacts violently in every case. As he walks across LA (now there's a concept), cutting a bloody swath, he's being tracked by a cop on the verge of retirement (Robert Duvall). He also spends time on the phone with his frightened ex-wife (Barbara Hershey). Though Douglas and Duvall give stellar performances, they can't disguise the fact that, as usual, this is another film from director Joel Schumacher that is about surface and sensation, rather than actual substance. I--Marshall Fine/I Amazon.co.uk Review This film, about a downsized engineer (Michael Douglas) who goes ballistic, triggered a media avalanche of stories about middle-class white rage when it was released in 1993. In fact, it's nothing more than a manipulative, violent melodrama about one geek's meltdown. Douglas, complete with pocket protector, nerd glasses, crewcut and short-sleeved white shirt, gets stuck in traffic one day near downtown LA and proceeds to just walk away from his car--and then lose it emotionally. Everyone he encounters rubs him the wrong way--and a fine lot of stereotypes they are, from threatening ghetto punks to rude convenience store owners to a creepy white supremacist--and he reacts violently in every case. As he walks across LA (now there's a concept), cutting a bloody swath, he's being tracked by a cop on the verge of retirement (Robert Duvall). He also spends time on the phone with his frightened ex-wife (Barbara Hershey). Though Douglas and Duvall give stellar performances, they can't disguise the fact that, as usual, this is another film from director Joel Schumacher that is about surface and sensation, rather than actual substance. --IMarshall Fine, Amazon.com/I --This text refers to the VHS edition of this video

Customer Reviews: Showing reviews 1-5 of 29 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next » A film that really leaves its mark on you August 21, 2003 Daniel Jolley (Shelby, North Carolina USA) 22 out of 23 found this review helpful This is a powerful film, but I personally don't look at it as some type of social commentary or condemnation of modern society, although it certainly touches on some of the problems that will always exist among human beings. Falling Down may well have a potent effect on anyone watching it, though. It always leaves me feeling really, really weird because it touches on so many things we all have to put up with each day, presents a monster whom I can't help but sympathize with in some degree, provides us with a hero whose own life is rife with undeserved problems, and runs its course atop a strong undercurrent of sadness. Michael Douglas gives one of his better performances as Bill Foster, an unremarkable man who finds his world torn apart and finally just snaps. He has lost his wife and little girl (which is his own fault); he's lost his job, the one thing that made him feel important; he just wants things to be like they used to be. He doesn't want to sit in traffic with no air conditioning or pay almost a dollar for a little can of soda or see plastic surgeons living the life of Riley while he can't even support his little girl. His journey "home" is an extraordinary one, and the kinds of awful people he encounters on the way do nothing to help his mentality. It's hard not to cheer him on when he manages to effect an escape from a couple of gangsters trying to rob him, but acts such as holding a burger joint up just because they refuse to serve him breakfast after lunch time is, obviously, way out there. No matter what terrible things he does, though, I can't get completely past the fact that he earnestly wants to see his little girl and give her a present for her birthday; in a clearly psychotic way, I find this movie somewhat touching, and that only makes the whole experience more depressing than it already is.pRobert Duvall is indeed quite good as the good cop, Prendergast, pursuing this vigilante on his last day before retirement. His life is no dream either, but of course he handles his own problems in a way quite unlike our man Foster does. His wife is clearly disturbed, made frighteningly burdensome and vulnerable by the death of their own little girl and an earlier wounding of her husband on the job. For her benefit, he took a desk job and is forced to put up with a lot of jokes and insults from his fellow cops, including his own boss. Except for his partner, all of the cops in this film are as unfeeling and cruel as some of the shady characters Foster meets up with during his journey home, and that is to me one of the more disturbing aspects of this film. pOne of the things I liked most about Falling Down was its attempt to portray Foster as one very disturbed man and not a stand-in for any type of stereotypical vigilante; one character in particular makes this point quite clearly when, discovering that Foster doesn't actually agree with him in his own twisted, stereotypically extremist mindset, he asks the man just what kind of vigilante he is supposed to be. My own thinking is that Falling Down is not meant to be a warning about a group of potential Bill Fosters festering in the midst of society; instead, by showing us what happens to one man, it is warning us to walk carefully on our own journeys and to be careful to keep our tempers in check even when the world seems to be out to get us. At the same time, it doesn't imply that we should roll over and play dead whenever a problem comes our way, using the character of Prendergast to show us that we can and should stand up for ourselves but only in constructive ways. I really have a lot of conflicting emotions about this film, but the one thing I am sure of is that Falling Down is an unforgettable motion picture well worth seeing. Falling Down May 18, 2005 Rich Milligan (Thatcham, Berkshire) 21 out of 23 found this review helpful Falling Down is perhaps the best Michael Douglas film I have seen in recent years and is certainly a more credible outing than some of his other offerings.pFalling Down tells the tale of a middle class white-collar worker who is slowly cracking up over his divorce and separation from his child and begins to take out his mental anguish on the everyday world he can no longer relate to. What starts as a day a being left hot and bothered in a traffic jam develops into a shooting spree as Douglas's character snaps and goes off the rails. On the other side of the coin we have Robert Duvall playing a grizzled old cop on his last day at work before retirement. It is Duvall who starts to piece together what is going on this fateful day as opposed to his scornful younger colleagues. pThis, I guess, is the most interesting factor of the film, is that basically Douglas and Duvall play the same character. They are the forgotten men of America, middle aged, passed over and ignored at work, both rejected to an extent by their wives and both seeing the world they used to understand crumble around them. The fact is Duvall has the mental capacity to deal with the situation whereas Douglas does not.pThe opening scene in which we see Douglas trapped in the traffic jam is extremely well presented and really sets the heat and frustration levels of the movie from the beginning. Other scenes in the film are equally as stunning and have almost become legend in film history. The scene in the Burger Bar is simply stunning and it is scenes like this where the viewer actually cheers for Douglas as he performs all the stunts we would like to in our own real worlds!pHaving read other reviews of the film I note that some have accused the Douglas character of being racist, and the film in general has a racist flavour. Is this the story of the middle class white man taking out his frustrations on an ethnic minority "taking over his country"? To be honest when watching the film this never occurred to me, and even now I see the film as a rebellion against the everyday environment, whether that be race related or not. I didn't see Douglas's character treat the white citizens any differently throughout. pAll in all, an excellent film that works on many levels. It's a tense and atmospheric thriller, a great exponent of classic almost black comic scenes and a talking point of modern life and the way we live it. Amazingly tense December 21, 2003 Scarecrow (Gotham City) 5 out of 5 found this review helpful Before 'BATMAN ROBIN', there was hope for Joel Schumacher (The Lost Boys, Tigerland, Phone Booth) and this cruely underated movie shows it. With both Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall on top form, this movie is a winner on every level.pThe movie starts off with Douglas' William Foster, a man with a BIG temper, stook in a taffic jam on the hottest day of the year. Foster gets very fustraighted and abandons his car in the middle of the road. He goes to the nearest shop to get change for the phone and ends up trashing it over the price of a can of coke. After, he decides to walk home for his daught's birthday, even though he knows his ex-wife has filed a restaining order against him. On his way home he causes extreme mayham. Now, Detective Prendergast (Duvall), on his retirement day, is determined to find out who is doing all these terriable crimes.pEven though Dauglas is made out to be the bad guy, you can't help but feel sorry for him. Excellent, brilliant thiller that should be reguarded as a classic. Amazon - where do your reviews come from? October 8, 2004 6 out of 7 found this review helpful I just felt I had to comment on Amazon's review of this film as it seems whoever wrote it has completely missed the point.pThis film is an excellent portrail of the reality of America and all that it stands for and how it affects one man in particular. How the government have destroyed his marriage and sent him off the rails. The portrail of American society's unfortunate by-products - the fast food diner and the airheads that work there, the gangsters and the street gangs, the lunatic in the army surplus store. pI thought it was fantastic and it left me with an all too familiar vision of the ugliness of modern 20th/21st century life. Absolutely brilliant, a classic and 'must have' for any film collector December 2, 2007 Joe Cutts (Sheffield, south yorkshire United Kingdom) 3 out of 3 found this review helpful Take the hottest day of the year, a traffic gridlock, cracked pavements, dirty streets, unwarranted hostility and a general feeling of being short changed. Then add the frustrations of having an estranged wife and child, an extremely jaded and unbalanced mindset, and the frustration of being obsolete with no marketable skills. Set them against the decadent back drop of modern day LA where if you are 'Not economically viable,' you are of no use, and the result is Falling Down. br / br /The tag line 'The Adventures of an Ordinary man at War with the Everyday World,' makes Joel Schumacher's masterpiece sound like the benign story of a working stiff with issues. However Falling Down is a dark and engrossing urban fable, a study into the mind of the disenfranchised and reminder to all that the removal of comfort is a lot closer than we care to believe. br / br /Full of clichés, like the cop on his last day before retiring, Falling Down bravely meets all expectations of stereotypes, rather than challenging them, making for a realistic reflection of a failing society. Here, a man in extremis, without the feral cunning or killer instinct required for a life in the street, makes his way on anger and luck alone, somehow surviving to leave a paper chase of violence and destruction behind. br / br /Relying heavily on symbolism, illustrating a flip side of America running parallel to the hunky dory world occupied by the successful, the over all message of 'No Matter, Never Mind,' is clear in this world where children play next to vagrants dying from AIDS and Korean grocers can legally steal from the public with their overpriced goods. br / br /Michael Douglas displays some hitherto unseen talent as the unbalanced D-FENS, as he casually totes gang weapons (complete with rubber bands on the grips) in his formal shirt and tie, does battle with store owners and comes up against fast food restaurants, homeless people, gangsters and Nazis. Robert Duval is equally brilliant as the desk jockey on his final day, determined to stop anyone else from being hurt, including the perp. br / br /There is, of course, a small amount of Hollywood sentimentality thrown in for good measure, however the dynamics of such a strong narrative make this completely forgivable and it's possible to overlook this as a flaw given the film's overall strengths. br / br /Praise surely has to go to Ebbe Roe Smith for writing one of the finest scripts ever to grace celluloid. Known for bit parts and cameos, who the hell knows who Ebbe really is? Look on IMDb to find out (if you're a geek like me) or release him into the ether if you don't care. The truth is, he's out there. The question is: Where's the next script? br / br /On the whole, Falling Down is a powerful and dramatic indictment of American culture, societal decadence, and the failing values of the West. It's not for everyone and will most certainly offend some, but if approached with an open mind, will provide plenty of fuel for thought. It's a shame though that the DVD doesn't come with any extras (mine didn't, anyway) because there's so much to this film that you just want to know more and more. br / br / Showing reviews 1-5 of 29 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next »

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