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Falling Down

Falling Down

List Price: $12.98
Your Price: $10.38
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The "Nerdinator"
Review: This is sort of a cross between "Revenge of the Nerds" and "High Plains Drifter." If you're a Clint Eastwood fan, then I think you'll like this flick. This is probably my favorite Michael Douglas movie, because he really plays a convincing role. Also good supporting cast, especially Frederick Forrest. Duvall is exceptionally fine also. Really, this movie pretty much acts out what many of us 'white middle class' males fantasize doing when we're just fed up with life in any big city.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Mad as Hell and Not Taking It Anymore
Review: Some people think this film is about violence or anger or racism. It's not, though. It's about sadness. The sadness that comes when life loses its meaning. The kind of sadness that can drive a man to do terrible things.

Michael Douglas stars as an unemployed defense worker who is having a very bad day. It starts with him being stuck in traffic on an L.A. freeway. No one is moving, his air conditioner is broken, and the exhaust fumes are overpowering. Finally, he abandons his car and sets out on foot. (The opening scene is an homage to the opening of Fellini's "8 1/2.")

The unnamed Douglas character, as he frequently says, is just trying to get home. He doesn't want any trouble; he just wants to see his family. Events, though, seem to conspire against him.

Along the way, he runs into a Korean grocer, Hispanic gangbangers, a homeless man, a neo-Nazi skinhead, and other colorful SoCal denizens who drive him to the edge. That's where the violence begins. This brings him to the attention of Sgt. Prendergrast (Robert Duvall), a police officer who is about to retire. Before he does, though, he is determined to catch Douglas.

Despite being on opposite sides of the law, the similarities between these two men are greater than the differences. Both of them are failures at home and at work. Both of them lead lives that have never quite lived up to their expectations; lives of "quiet desperation." The only difference is in how each man copes with his failures.

Michael Douglas is excellent in this role, playing it in a very controlled and understated way. It would have been very easy to go over the top with it, but he never does. Duvall is good, as usual, in the more reserved, low profile part.

What is most compelling about this story is how real it seems. The things Douglas does are thing we've all thought about doing. The things he feels--the anger, the helplessness--are all things we've felt. In that sense, he represents a side of ourselves; a side we don't want to admit we have, but one that we can't deny.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This movie is worth the price of admission and then some
Review: Falling Down is a movie that I would recommend to anyone who wants to watch a movie about a guy who snaps in Los Angeles (it beats freeway chases). He goes on a rampage through the southland to see his daughter's birthday in Santa Monica. Michael Douglas and Robert Duval give excellent performances in the movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: SCHUMACHER DID A GREAT JOB !
Review: It is amazing that this movie was made by the same guy who practically buried the BATMAN series, Joel Schumacher. Douglas's character is suffocating, we watch him going to meet his tragic end, but we feel we cannot do nothing to prevent, we feel hopeless, because we identify with him, trapped inside the American way of life, trapped inside capitalism. The movie inspired an IRON MAIDEN song called "MAN ON THE EDGE", in the album "THE X-FACTOR".

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Alternative way of life
Review: Well, this moive just sums the whole stressing and busy western way of life. The sharp cynism spikes and colourful charecters support the brilliant plot perfectly. Michael Douglas does his best acting job ever! And this movie doesn't critisize the stressful way of life only, it also geniously critisizes the hypercommercial and superficial american way of life. The movie about the 90's may well be the movie of the 90's.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Cynicism gone beserk
Review: I see a lot of parallels to Catcher in the Rye in this film. Take for instance the part where Holden is complaining because he sees a "F*** You" written in the museum:

"That's the trouble, you can't find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any."

That pretty much sums up the movie's premise for me. Even that snow thing that he bought for his daughter eventually got destroyed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: a movie that showes the truth
Review: This movie is one of my all-time favourite movies. It showes the reality of "just another day in our sick society", and the main person D-Fens is like a hero to me. He is not the sick element, but his surroundings are. This movie can be a warning to a lot of weak people, people who made and make this society as dehumanizing as it is now, but at the same time can`t deal with their own mess. I believe that people who are shocked about this movie can`t deal with the truth, because they feel something like regret, feelings of guilt. Wanna know why ? Because almost everybody is building this anti-human-society every day, just a little piece of it. Buy this movie, watch it over and over, and don`t look at it like "entertainment", but look at it like something real, something different, some personal warning to everybody. Everyting Bill "D-Fens" Foster does is totally acceptable, because the people around made him what he was at this hot L.A.-summer-day. This movie contains also a lot of funny elements. WATCH IT ! (and understand the honesty of this movie)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The movie's pretty DARN GOOD, if you ask me.
Review: If you're a fan of the Charles Bronson stuff, this one's for you. Micheal Douglas (deeper into the movie, you'll forget it's even him) gets to act out all the heroic violence the average citizen have fantasized about doing. The actors portray lives that the ordinary citizen can related to. The acting in the movie is top-notched, although stereotypical, very real, made even more real with well-placed profainity like, "give us your f----- briefcase!" and at the end, "F--- you very much, f--- you very much." All this, the whole movie, takes place within one whole day of a familiar society. The music really helps to bring out the urban wilderness, not to mention the piece at the end. Oh, what a cooling conclusion to a long heated day! I especially enjoyed the scene on the golfcourse. Douglas fires a rifle shot after the greedy old grump clubs a golf ball at him, giving him a heart attack. Then the memoriable line from Douglas, "Good! How does it feel? Now you're gonna die wearing that stupid little hat of yours! How does it feel?" I laughed and sadistically enjoyed every second.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A fine lot of stereotypes ?
Review: Well, Marshall Fine, I think you precisely missed the point ! This great movie (probably the best Joel schumacher ever directed) has not its fine lot of stereotypes : it's just that Americans are a huge collection of living stereotypes !

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the funniest movies ever
Review: This is one hilarious movie. It gives new meaning to the word melodrama. I could not stop laughing. Anyone looking for a good laugh at a crazy's expense should definitely check this out. 5 Stars!


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