Certainly an interesting movie to finally see during the Trump era. Filmed in 1992 (with shooting temporarily interrupted by the L.A. Riots) but released in 1993 Falling Down is the story of a recently laid of defense worker (Michael Douglas) who snaps, abandons his car in traffic one hot summer day and walks a violent odyssey across Los Angeles to his ex-wife's house in Venice Beach and his little girls birthday party. Robert Duvall serves counterpoint as a police officer on the trail of Douglas, on of course the day of his retirement from the force.
Douglas in character made the cover of Newsweek Magazine in March of 1993 (the movie came out in February) for an article about the "angry white male". The message of the film is a little ambiguous, how much are we supposed to sympathize with lead character William Foster? In some ways he has gotten a raw deal, but through course of the story we learn he was always a man with violent potential, who insisted on things "his way", we learn that he is at least a casual racist, but also that he is not a Nazi because he kills one in the course of the movie. Despite this moral muddle and the film at times being kind of ridicules, it was consistently entertaining, almost perfectly paced it never lost my interest. I also suspect that like Patton this is something of a Rorschach movie, the protagonists shade of hero v villain depends on what you bring to the proceedings. ***
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