... Its Pendergasts last day on the force (one of many film cliches un Falling Down) and he's being held up by D-Fens's abandoned car.
D-Fens then goes on a series of adventures. He smashes up a 'grocery store' becasue he thinks the coke is 35c over priced. He fights some Latino gangsters who ... Read review
Falling Down, about a downsized engineer (Michael Douglas) who goes ballistic, triggered a ... more
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 melodra...
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Falling Down, about a downsized engineer (Michael Douglas) who goes ballistic, triggered a ... more
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 melodra...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Freeways are clogged. Terror stalks our cities. At shops and restaurants the customer is ... more
seldom right. The pressures of big-city life can anger anyone. But Bill Foster is more than angry. He's out to get even. "I'm going home" Foster says as he aban...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
A divorced defence industry engineer William Foster, is trying to get home for his ... more
daughter's birthday, but is stuck in L.A. traffic. He abandons his car and walks straight into an urban nightmare which is both absurdly funny and shatteringly violent.
Intro (Liquor Soaked Sentiments) Run Hard Apollo Skit Manimals (feat. Usmaan and The ... more
Sundragon) Fear Skit Citizen Smif Brimstone Rock Give It Here (feat. Klashnekoff & Lewis Parker) Falling Skit Dirty (Check Me Out Yo!) Monotony (feat. Asaviour & Diablo) ESP (Extra Sensory Perfection) Die When U Die Move Back Falling Down China Shop Taurus
Postage & Packaging:£0.00 Availability:3-5 working days
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
Production Year: 1977 - Action/Adventure - Director: Clint Eastwood - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring:Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney
Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
Advantages: Harshness of America portrayed Disadvantages: Crappy actors, crap music, crappy cliches
...of many film cliches un Falling Down) and he's being held up by D-Fens's abandoned car.
D-Fens then goes on a series of adventures. He smashes up a 'grocery store' becasue he thinks the coke is 35c over priced. He fights some Latino gangsters who come after him for revenge. He crosses paths with a neo-nazi and holds up a fast-food restaurant because they won't give him breakfast 6 minutes after breakfast ended. All the while he claims ... ...with stopping Foster's city-wide rampage. Falling Down is their story, a spellbinding, unconventional thriller that asks: "Are we falling apart?"
My brother paid £3 for this DVD which I think is fair
It is a certificate 18. I don't think is appropriate there is some moderate violence and some bad language but I would consider it a 12. 15 at a push. ... more
Yesterday when I came home I was pretty tired and looking forwad to watching some TV and relaxing. Nothing on the box my brother suggested the DVD he bought. 'Why not?' I thought. Then he came down with this and as soon as I saw the box I was disgusted 'Michael Douglas? Have you gone wrong? He's in crap films" I hit him and threw the DVD box at him he came back witha pilow at me. A**hole. I was almost up for going out and doing something but being lazy I thought I'd give myself ten imnutes of sitting down first. So started watching the film and to my suprise I'd seen it before I had just never noticed that it was Michael Douglas (Duh Harry.) It's amazing as it really is the only thing I feel that Douglas made that's worth watching.
THE STORY
The story is about one Bill or D-Fens as the credits call him thanks to his personalised licence plate, played by Michael Douglas. Bill's not a happy bunny, the film starts with him sitting in the traffic in the horrible fly infested heat listening to the irritated drivers of other vehicles. It all gets too much for him and he snaps and just abandons his car in the middle of the road and walks off. It's at this point that we meet the other main character: Detective Prendergast played by Robert Duvall (The Godfather 1&2, Apocalypse Now). Its Pendergasts last day on the force (one of many film cliches un Falling Down) and he's being held up by D-Fens's abandoned car.
D-Fens then goes on a series of adventures. He smashes up a 'grocery store' becasue he thinks the coke is 35c over priced. He fights some Latino gangsters who come after him for revenge. He crosses paths with a neo-nazi and holds up a fast-food restaurant because they won't give him breakfast 6 minutes after breakfast ended. All the while he claims he only wants to go home to his daughter's birthday party.
Prendergast starts to notice trends in crimes committed in the city that day as he sits in the office. No-one wants to listen to him though and his wife gives him a hard time about coming home safe on the phone every couple of weeks. But he's eager to prove himself as a good cop one last time.
My Opinion
There are elements of this film that are brilliant and there are elements that are terrible. The acting by almost everyone except Michael Douglas and Duvall is terrible. No one is realistic they all have very artificia, exagerrated reactions and they really let the film down to an extent. The Latino gangsters, the builders, the nazi etc are all pretty badly partrayed.
The music is also horrible, made in 1992 this film hasn't escaped the terrible music that prevailed in 80's action movies and the like. A further let down to the film and it just really annoyed me. I hate the music those crappy Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal films have with a passion (indeed I hate those films with a passion)
However, I gave this film three stars and I must do more than justify not giving it the full five. What makes this film good is the concept. D-Fens is reacting against harsh American society, as he sits in the car at the beginning we are bombarded with the bumper stickers of evangelical christians, cartoon character;s stuck to windows, angry people all in a hurry and a general feeling of hostility amongst everyone. D-Fens has been laid off at his work as he is not 'economically viable'. We also see another man in the film protesting against being laid off for not being economically viable. Throughout the film we are met with shots of people on the street begging, people holding placards with 'Will work for food scrawled on them'. The film is a great social commentary and indictment of the harsh capitalism in America that is devoid of any credible welfare state.
For all its downsides I find this side to the film and indeed Douglas's part as enjoyable and well worth watching. Joel Schumacher (Veronica Geurin, Batman) directed the film and like his career this film has good parts and some not so good parts. I would recommend it to watch but maybe not to buy. There are no DVD extras.
Blurb on DVD
Freeways are clogged. Terror stalks our cities. At shops and restaurants, the customer is seldom right. The pressure of big-city life can anger anyone. But Bill Foster is more than angry. He's out to get even. "I'm going home," Foster says as he abandons his gridlocked car on the hottest day of the year. Instead, he walks stright into an urban nightmareby turns absurdly funny and shatteringly violent. Academy Award winner Michael Douglas is Foster, an ordinary guy at war with the frustrations of daily living. Fellow Oscar winner Robert Duvall is the savvy cop obsessed with stopping Foster's city-wide rampage. Falling Down is their story, a spellbinding, unconventional thriller that asks: "Are we falling apart?"
My brother paid £3 for this DVD which I think is fair
It is a certificate 18. I don't think is appropriate there is some moderate violence and some bad language but I would consider it a 12. 15 at a push.
Advantages: Excellent acting, Douglas' best performance. Intriguing and thought-provoking Disadvantages: Cliched to say the least! Women have no role to play in this tale of the white man losing his role
I have probably watched Falling Down more than any other film. At first I enjoyed it because of its narrative of a man progressing through a city and identifying the wrongs within it. There is both enjoyment in the acts D-Fens and also a horror, both in what he is doing and that we ourselves are taking pleasure in it. But the more I watch it the more shocked I am by the portrayals of the city of Los Angeles and the groups that inhabit it.
Falling ... ...a much deeper meaning in Falling Down. In trekking across the city he discovers its reality and the different groups that he has been protecting in his work for the defence industry. Robert Duvall plays his police pursuer Prendergast, who tracks him from one side of the city to the other and who also has problems with the city and what it has become.
Los Angeles is shown as a space of paranoia, of individuals seemingly battling against other groups ...
litebite 20.09.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Falling Down (DVD)
Advantages: It is watchable - just! Disadvantages: Unrealistic and disturbing
I can't believe that it is 10 years since I first saw this film at the cinema. How times change! I was a teenager then, and I think I took the film at face value without really thinking about the message it was trying to convey. I added this film to my collection about three years ago, and to be honest, I had not even opened it until I was at a loose end last weekend, and the options on television did not look too appealing, so I decided to watch ... ...and 90% of the on screen action involves him. He looks older in this film than he does now, and that may have something to do with the pretty severe haircut he has received for this part of D-Fens (a poor play on words admittedly). Initially, he seems like a pretty mild mannered man, who has gone through a divorce and has a job that he does not particularly care for. All of that is forgotten when one day, all of the pressures in his life build up, ...
nicanddarrell 26.11.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Falling Down (DVD)
Advantages: Great Story, Well Acted Disadvantages: Duvall's Role
The rage of the white male pushed to the back burner in a multiracial society and perhaps in the moves forward of civilisation. The film also has a healthy dose of moral issues about the misuse guns. Michael Douglas is Foster the disgruntled and disheartened American Citizen, who just wants to go home.
The only thing wrong with this film is the adding of a cop in a shadow role. While Robert Duvall's performance as Pendergast the 'soon to be retired' ... ...scenes show Foster stuck in a traffic jam in a "tunnel" - actually, in this instance, below a freeway overpass. The incident represents his current crisis, where he's stuck in a rut with his career. Foster, forever the victim of American realism, decides to abandon his car and walk away. Thus begins his journey across downtown Los Angeles in order to go home. In fact, Foster has no home to return to, as he's separated from his wife and daughter and ...
Sid76 08.03.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Falling Down (DVD)
Advantages: interesting take on white collar violence Disadvantages: violent
When you look at Michael Douglas in this you are looking at every lower middle class American male in the 1950s. At least in so far as the haircut and attire go.
Douglas plays a man who has lost his job but leaves the house every morning in the pretence that he is going to work. One day he finally completely cracks and the film covers this day.
You could say that this film is all about the frustration felt by white-collar workers and how they would ... ...in the film.
What does he do? Well I will tell you (imagine me saying that in an Ali G voice).
He starts off by giving out egregiously about the price of various items in a local store and ends up acquiring a gun. With the gun he decides to play vigilante and consumer watchdog. Eh?
You see he pays a visit to his local McDonald’s clone and looks for breakfast. They tell him that he can’t have it because the allotted time has passed ...
oclumhain 16.03.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Falling Down (DVD)
Advantages: Good Story, Good Humour, Good Story Pace Disadvantages: Duvall a bit OTT.
Falling Down. Running Time 108mins. Languages : English, French, Italian Subtitles : English, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Bulgarian, German. There are no special features on the DVD this is a film from 1993 on the verge of DVDs getting big on extras. Don't worry the DVD is good without any bumpf to pack it out. Michael Douglas plays and average man (Bill Foster) fed up with the day to day grind and the things that are wrong ... ...them being there. The Burger on the picture that looks nothing like the picture on the board. The traffic on his way to work is at a stand still so he opts to leave his car and just walk. Making his way across the city he opts to put right what is wrong ? normally by use of a physical nature. Robert Duvall is the cop who is quickly obsessed with finding the anti-hero. After his killing and destroying of various things around the city, you are left ...
smurfuk76 19.02.2009 (14.07.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Falling Down (DVD)
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Advantages: wella cted, funny staryline, enjoyable for entire family from younget to oldest Disadvantages: no extras, unremastered print
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Advantages: Equally entertaining for kids and parents Disadvantages: Ummmm..........
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Advantages: Good Party Game Disadvantages: Painfully Slow
I had been looking out for a good party game for the christmas period, unfortunately I chose this one.
The packaging looks very good and certainly sells the game to you at a not inexpensive £16.99.
When loading the game it is unclear of how to play the different options, and then after selecting can take up to 2 minutes to get to the questions.
The questions are ok, you choose from 5 categories 60's,70's,80's,90's and current, I would judge the complexity of the questions as fairly easily.
Where the game fallsdown is the time taken between each question up to 3 minutes, it also fails to use the additional medium that DVD has over a standard box quiz i:e video and pictures with only 20% of the questions using this.
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"...A wickedly mischievous, entertaining suspense thriller....Douglas is terrific..." (New York Times, p.C3, 26/02/1993)
"...[Schumacher] gives this explosive drama a whiplash intensity that never lets up....FALLING DOWN puts a human face on a cold statistic and then dares us to look away..." (Rolling Stone, p.71-2, 04/03/1993)
"...[A] powerful portrait of social alienation....The film provides Douglas with a real performer's showcase, and he delivers a strong, intense portrayal of a walking time bomb..." (Variety, 15/02/1983)
DVD Description
A laid-off defense worker, kept from seeing his child on her birthday by a restraining order, looks at the landscape of moral decay in Los Angeles on one hot, congested day and, after being mugged, snaps. What follows is his bitter and pathetic mission of justice, vengeance and vindication that reads uncomfortably like too many news stories.
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