The Drinker Recommends... Falling Down

you know occurred to me that while my recent diet of terrible movies has allowed me to go on some pretty enjoyable YouTube rants the hard fact here is that too much of that kind of thing is bad for the mind it's a bit like eating doner kebabs for breakfast lunch and dinner you might enjoy it at the time but sooner or later you're gonna end up explosively [ __ ] yourself believe me I know about that so it was lucky that I found a solution to this problem over the weekend in the form of a movie about a troubled man who gets abandoned and ignored by society causing him to snap and go on a violent revenge trip against the world that never cared about him and who better to follow this up then another movie about a troubled man who gets abandoned and ignored by society causing him to snap and go on a violent revenge trip against the world that never cared about him I say oh boy this calls for another episode of and in this case the drinker recommends you find yourself a copy of falling down and watch it at your earliest convenience believe me you'll thank me for it no normally I use this series to KO attention to new movies or shows that people might be on the fence about but in this case I'm taking you back in time back to a hot day in Los Angeles in the summer of 1993 so grab yourself a cold beer and bask in the warming glow of the drinkers plot summary but in case you don't want the plot spoiled sooo badly skip to this timecode from a summary and final thoughts ready okay good let's get into this fallen down kicks off by introducing us to our protagonist a man by the name of William Foster who's stuck in traffic in the middle of a heat wave things aren't going too well for old bill he's lost his job because of Defense Department cutbacks he's estranged from his wife and he's been blocked from having any contact with his daughter even though it's her birthday today and Samak matters worse the aircon on his car is broken the heat and the noise and the pressure slowly rises around and pushing him closer and closer to breaking point and so finally he snaps he grabs his briefcase and abandons his car wandering off in a shell-shocked day and ignoring the angry shouts and horn blasts from his fellow commuters what follows is an epic touching thought-provoking darkly funny and often violent and destructive rampage as bill mixes way across the city on foot with the singular goal getting back home to his daughter's birthday party along the way he encounters people from all walks of life some of them good most of them bad but all of them pushing him towards a violent poignant and tragic finale the still hits just as hard a quarter of a century later stopping off at a nearby convenience store to get changed for a phone call yeah you had to use payphones in the nineties bill becomes enraged when the owner of woodland breaker 24 changed so he smashes the place up buys a soda and leaves you classy son of a [ __ ] bill then he's taking the weight off in a nearby wasteland when some latino gang members try to Robin or am I supposed to see lots of necks these days I don't really know nor do I care bill just wants to be left alone but everybody runs into seems to want to screw him over they see a white man in a certain sigh and take him for an easy mark but they picked the wrong day and the wrong guy he's having none of that [ __ ] so he beats them up with a baseball bat that he took from the convenience store and then he tells them to [ __ ] off I really love this scene when he completely loses his [ __ ] and screams at them I'm going home it's more obvious than ever that this is a man who's been stepped on too many times by too many people a man used to backhand down rather than causing trouble who's finally run out of shits to give and at last he's standing up for himself it's a primal moment of absolute rage and it plays out brilliantly but the gangbangers aren't done with him they go away to get reinforcements and they spot him a short time later at a phone booth and tried to do a drive-by on him but their aims about as accurate as a post-sex piss and they hit pretty much everything is set for a bill then they lose control and crash the car so bill helps himself to their guns and walks off this stage of the movie plays I almost like a video game Bill's taking on tougher and tougher opponents upgrading his weapons as he goes the movie wants you to cheer for this guy like he's some kind of hero defeating evil enemies and this whole thing is a wacky madcap adventure where everything's gonna work out in the end trust me I warned know this series of unfortunate events soon comes to the attention of the LAPD but most of them don't see any connection they're overworked and undermanned and they've got more important stuff to deal with than this but one man sees the link because he was stuck in the same traffic jam as bill earlier in the day and he recognizes the description of the suspect Martin Prendergast is an agent detective finishing up his last day on the job before taking early retirement most guys in his position would be happy to just run out the clock and leave someone else to follow up the case but Prendergast recognizes the danger that bill represents so he takes his partner Torrez and picks up the trail so the movie becomes a kind of cat-and-mouse game between these two men bill doggedly makes his way to his ex-wife's home becoming more angry and unstable as he encounters resistance and injustice along the way while Prendergast gradually closes in on him piecing together clues about the man's personal history and what might be driving him we begin to learn that there's a darker side to Bill's personality he became angry aggressive and unpredictable since he lost his job forcing his wife to get a restraining order against him even his own mother's afraid of him now meanwhile thing are escalating rapidly for bill as he nears his destination after being mistaken for a white supremacist vigilante he murders the racist owner of an army-surplus store in self-defense then he threatens some rich [ __ ] who tries to hit him with a golf ball causing the guy to have a heart attack [ __ ] man even uses a rocket launcher to blow up a highway maintenance site because he reckons they're doing unnecessary work just to piss people off let's be honest we've all wanted to do that and I guess that's kind of a theme here Bill's ticket on the pet irritations and unfairness that we all encounter in our lives traffic jams [ __ ] convenience store workers fast-food joints own [ __ ] products and rich [ __ ] who think the world revolves around them it's cathartic and satisfying at times but you know it can't last forever Samaras finally comes to a head when both parties converge on bills ex-wife's house Torres gets shot and wounded in the resultant confrontation leaving Prendergast to go after bill alone he tracks the man to a nearby pier overlooking the sea where he's finally managed to do the one thing he really cared about all along reunite with his daughter it's a touching scene especially when Prendergast opens up to Bill about his own losses and failures in life including the death of his own daughter when she was just a baby you begin to see that these two men have a lot more in common than we first thought the only difference is that one of them is still on the right side of the law Prendergast begs him to surrender but bill realizes he's gonna spend the rest of his life in prison for what he did today realizing the game's up he resigns himself to be in the bad guy of this story and draws a weapon on Prendergast forcing the man to shoot him dead the movie ends with Prendergast deciding to stay on as a police detective realizing he still has the chance to help people and make a difference the final shot is a home movie that bill was watching earlier a recording of himself and his family played on the pier during happier times before finally fade into black and that's it that's the plot for fallen down for me this movie is about as close to cinematic perfection as I can think of the story the characters the dialogue the performances the ideas it puts across are all done to absolute perfection it's a movie that constantly pleased with your expectations through its gradual shift and tone to your changing understanding of the characters and their motivations the setting of la in the grip of a withering heatwave is the perfect backdrop to a film like this this movie depicts the city as a bleak and heartless concrete jungle filled with teeming masses that are largely indifferent to the plight of others a place where only the strong and ruthless survive it's a place where average people are downtrodden overworked frustrated and burned-out where everyone is either angry and defensive jaded and cynical or selfish and opportunistic it's a world where the American Dream hasn't just been lost it's like it never even existed see this movie came along at kind of an interest in time in American history it was the early nineties the Cold War had ended the Soviet Union was no more and there was a Democrat in the White House for the first time in more than a decade the times were changing and the culture was changing along with it the bombastic confidence and patriotism of the 80s was gradually given way to the more reflective sensitive and progressive 90s the problem is the economy was going through a big change too a lot of guys who'd structured the whole lives around the world as it was suddenly found themselves out of a job cast aside and discarded by a society that no longer needed or even respected them guys just like Bill Foster the arc that bill goes through in this film is one of the smartest most complex and thought-provoking that I've seen in a long time even Danny from Game of Thrones couldn't top it [ __ ] off Game of Thrones I can't believe I even mentioned you in the same context has fallen down Bill's journey starts in the most relatable of situations we've all been where he was stuck in traffic sweaty and uncomfortable surrounded by annoying [ __ ] you can't even bear to look at and desperate to just get away from it and when he does you can almost feel the surge of relief his action star is understandable justifiable rebellion against a shitty world that wants to break him down and instinctively you cheer for him every time he loses his [ __ ] and lashes out there's some [ __ ] who pushes him a little too far it feels satisfying and cathartic but gradually his journey morphs into something darker and more vengeful as he gets closer to his objective being characters start escalating and Bill's increasingly violent actions become harder and harder to justify as he grows more detached from reality and starts making threatening phone calls to his wife you begin to see that this is a man who's broken in ways that can't be fixed he starts out as the epitome of the white bread law-abiding citizen this is a guy used to following orders paying his taxes doing the right thing a guy who was raised to trust the system told that if he just obeyed the rules and do your job everything will be fine everything about this guy from his flattop hairstyle to his thick glasses and his shirt and tie it's all designed to conjure up images of solid dependable government men from a bygone age the kind of guy you'd expect to see working for NASA back in the 60s a relic from a more innocent simple optimistic time that can't deal with the confusion and complexity of a change in America in the 90s if I had to sum up Bill's journey in this movie I'd say it's about him starting out in a world of lies that gradually gets stripped away to reveal the truth this happens in many different ways some of them touching others surprisingly amusing and like when he goes to a burger joint and orders the meal that turns out to be well not exactly as advertised I think we have a critic or when he spots a man protesting outside a bank because he got denied a loan just before he gets arrested a working man no different from himself they're even wearing the same damn clothes who tried hard all his life and just couldn't make it and now he's been cast aside and forgotten like a piece of disposable trash keep that in mind when he catches bill's eye and makes a simple but very meaningful request [Music] fallen-down isn't afraid to take shots at consumerism and corporate America depict in a world where people were routinely sold comforting lies to keep them trapped in the same meaningless mindless grind day after day a place where anyone who falls behind or runs into bad luck gets mercilessly crushed and pushed aside bill and by extension the audience gradually gets exposed to the world as it truly is and for the most part that truth is cruel and hard and ugly and ironically enough the final light to be uncovered is the one that bill's been telling to himself the whole movie when he's finally forced to see his actions for what they really are and it leads to one of the most poignant and heartbreaking lines of dialogue I think I've ever heard and the bad guy yeah have that happen I did everything they told me to ultimately how you view build depends largely on your own perspective you could choose to see him as an honest but tragic antihero fighting for a just cause against the largely corrupt and evil world's one of the last good men in a world gone bad or you could view him as an angry violent and vengeful man who resents the fact he's no longer king of the hill or you could just see him as a flawed troubled human being who was pushed to breaking point by a society that doesn't give a [ __ ] about him for me falling down is a story about the decline of the working man and a changing culture the loss of prestige and respect the frustration of being cast aside and ignored and perhaps the desire to fight back the downfall of Bill is mirrored in the character of Prendergast who starts out as don't rod and pussy-whipped and disrespected by almost everyone around him even his captain can't be asked with him and he makes it clear that he's glad the guy's taking early retirement because he's too [ __ ] nice to be a cop but whereas Bill's rebellion is violent destructive and ultimately self-defeating Prendergast goes through a kind of rebirth he learns to reassert himself he knocks out one of his [ __ ] co-workers when he disrespects him he tells his captain to go [ __ ] himself and he yells at his wife to stop being such an Aggie [ __ ] Amanda shut up you shut up by the end of the movie he's decided not to take early retirement after all because after dealing with Bill he's seen what happens to men when they lose their purpose in life so I guess the movie ends with kind of a bittersweet note the end of one man versus the rebirth of another as smart and thought-provoking and it leaves you to consider who the bad guy really is and what about the title of the movie falling down well it's a reference to the old song London Bridge is falling down which becomes kind of a recurring motif for both characters the snow blob that bill is trying to bring home to his daughter for her birthday plays the song when you wind it up while Prendergast sings it to his wife to calm her down which is having a panic attack it's the same song but it represents two very different things for both men for one it becomes a symbol of reunion firmly security and the hope of returns to happier times no matter how deluded for the other it comes to represent entrapment in an unhappy marriage and the fear of an uncertain future and I guess this is why I find fallen down to be such a fascinating movie on the surface it appears to be a straight-up thriller about a guy who snaps and goes on a violent rampage but if you care to look a little deeper then you start to see the complexity the creativity and the sheer thought that went into crafting its story and characters flow and don't is a movie that makes a powerful statement both about men and the society in which they live and perhaps it carries a bit of a warning to discard and ignore them at your peril it's the warning this is relevant today as it was 26 years ago when this movie was made and for all these reasons I wholeheartedly recommend falling down anyway that's all I have for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 1,106,571

Keywords: D-Fens, William Foster, Michael Douglas, review

Id: 5mXg-NZWFr8

Length: 16min 43sec (1003 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 09 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/RealAggromemnon]

You know McDonald's removed all day breakfast last year...

[u/spoulson]

I love this movie because I can relate in my adulthood. I didn’t catch this had anything to do with race. At least, not for anything more than a subplot during his interaction with the Nazi sympathizer guy.

Black Pilled did a nice play by play of the movie’s messages. https://youtu.be/q8IlXA4ArPg