Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

King Cali This is one of my favorite movies. you root for the "bad guy, but the bad guy is just a normal guy, trying to get home after a rough day. simple , realistic problems reflect the world as it truly is. The main character is the average joe, stepped on once too many times and he is about to snap.....

serafinogm Brilliantly played by Michael Douglas (in fact I think this is Michael's tour de force performance). D-Fens was a victim throughout, a man programmed to do the right thing but due to his victim-hood became disassociated from what was acceptable, so much so that a facsimile of right became right in any particular moment! D-Fens, like a rabid dog, and no more guilty of his illness than a dog with rabies, however despite this his illness, at least from the perspective of others, required he be put down (at least that is the pedestrian view) like a rabid animal. I on the other hand understand how D-Fens arrived at where he arrived and I view him as heroic, tragic figure!

NateWatchesCoolMovies Everyone's had the moment where they're at the absolute end of their rope and feel like taking drastic or violent action against whatever is grinding your gears. Whether it's a hot day in horrendous rush hour traffic, a particularly irritating lineup at Starbucks or an especially dense customer service worker, you just feel like saying 'screw it', and decimating the place with anything you can lay your hands on. In Joel Schumacher's Falling Down, Michael Douglas does just that on a sweltering LA summer day. His character, who remains nameless save for the moniker 'D-Fens', is a business man on his way home who just… snaps. Throwing a tantrum on the LA overpass, he quickly loses it, arms himself with a high velocity shotgun and proceeds to vet out every mundane annoyance, pet peeve and irksome scenario he can find. Whether it's brutal catharsis he's looking for, a cure for the doldrums of daily life or simply raging against that emptiness we all feel deep down, he keeps his reasons to himself, and let's every other aspect of his character run wild. Holding up a fast food joint because they stopped serving breakfast five minutes too early, massacring homeless punks who foolishly harass him, his crusade sprawls across the valley and beyond, a righteous purge of monotonous, infuriating trivial concerns that soon has the attention of LA's finest in the form of veteran Detective Robert Duvall and his crass, obnoxious lieutenant (Raymond J. Barry). It's also revealed that Douglas's personal life leading up to his break was rocky at best, with a job going downhill and hints of violence towards his wife and daughter. Quite drastic is the meltdown though, but it's not quite a character study, he's almost used more to pick away at the decays in society, a tool for exposing tears in the cloth we take for granted every day. His story is kind of like when you load up Grand Theft Auto on your console and completely ignore the missions in favour of a personalized war on anything that moves. His war happens to be against those little nagging inconveniences that seem like no biggie until they add up and you just go postal. It's darkly funny stuff, but quite harrowing when you look at the big picture and the actual damage he's doing to the city. Douglas is courageous here, it takes reckless abandon to go for a role like this, and he owns it in crew cut, well dressed fashion, a costume choice that absurdly clashes with the big metal cannon he totes. The film never takes sides either, recognizing both the bizarre consumerist nightmare we wade through everyday and it's ability to dampen your spirit as well as the sickening extremes he goes to, challenging you to walk a line and look at both sides. Hard hitting stuff.

Nadine Salakov Getting straight to the point with this review, the performances are well-acted, the acting is not the problem, it's the story. This entire movie is negative, from start to finish we see nothing but the main character falling into negative experiences one after the other. The majority of the people in this movie including minor and major characters are angry for no reason other than the humid weather playing a part, i'm sorry but hot weather is no reason to become angry, if the weather gives you a bad temper then stay at home.Michael Douglas's character was not a nice guy, it is verified during the family video scene, he was controlling and the scene where his mother explains a part of his personality also verifies him not being a very nice person, so why should we as viewers even care about this guy?! I don't know where the director was going with this movie, for a so- called deep film there is no message, if they were trying to get across that people can have mental breakdowns - then that's a pretty weak screenplay.This Flick also has a sad element of the main character constantly talking about "going home" to a place where he is not wanted. It's clear that his career, his wife and child were all he wanted and now that he lost them, he feels there is nothing left, which is not true, you have yourself and you have breath in your lungs, you still have hope, but this movie was not going in that direction.Falling Down is overrated, it's a very angry movie full of hate at every turn.