Falling Down was a provocative, controversial movie in 1993 and it’s been referred to as violent White men have become unfortunately prolific in real life. Looking back, the antiheroism was clear from the start. Besides the Nazi shopkeeper (Frederic Forest) admiring D-Fens (Michael Douglas), he’s called out on his assumptions immediately.
When he tells the Korean shopkeeper (Michael Paul Chan), “Do you know how much money my country gave Korea?” the clerk asks how much and D-Fens doesn’t know. When the homeless man claims he needs money for gas, it’s sobering to realize that scam is already 30 years old, and probably wasn’t new when they were running it in the ‘90s.
D-Fens meets other entitled people everywhere he goes: at a pay phone, on the golf course, even in traffic. D-Fens is the only one with a gun but the attitude that everyone has to get out of an aggressive man’s way is still a form of violence.
And one of the ineffective cops responding to his wife (Barbara Hershey)’s house tells her to vote no on budget cut bills. Very helpful for an immediate threat. Robert Duvall plays a good cop, and a good husband. His wife (Tuesday Weld) is dealing with mental health/anxiety issues. He is compassionate towards her but needs to set boundaries.
The 4K UHD lets you see the heat of that scorching day in L.A. The film has an overall bright white aesthetic, matching D-Fens’s button down shirt. The sky is blown out in the skyline and in store windows. When he changes to a black shirt halfway through, it’s not subtle but sometimes you have to tell the viewer he’s crossed fully into darkness, though he assaulted people in his white shirt too.
The red Whammyburger stands out as a drastic contrast to that. There are a few deep shadows, in his car before he abandons it, walking under the park tunnel and under the overhang at the rich family’s pool.
The sound seemed relatively subtle. Explosions rumble but it’s not an action movie mix.
In new bonus features, screenwriter Ebbe Roe Smith shares some darker elements he revised, like a sexual assault and another disturbing scene that simply involved D-Fens taking a nap. James Newton Howard talks scoring and revisiting the film’s locations goes in movie order. Unfortunately, they do not visit the El Pollo Loco which I believe is still there.
Douglas talks from the 2009 Blu-ray and on the commentary from 1993, responding to the controversy after the film’s release.