Yes, You're The Bad Guy | Essay on Falling Down

falling down is a 1993 film by jill schumacher in the film michael douglas plays defense a man recently fired from his american defense contractor job and fed up with his life he leaves his car in la traffic and proceeds to go on a rampage across the city robert duvall plays sergeant pendergrast a police sergeant on his last day before retirement rather than call it a day early he takes an interest in the case of tracking down defense pendergrass soon learns that defense is headed home to his young daughter that he desperately wants to see on her birthday despite his ex-wife not wanting him around her the film ends with the climax between defense and pendergrass meeting each other at the tragic climax falling down criticizes two forms of the hero perceived in american culture the outlaw hero and the official hero the official hero is traditionally someone who works within the law such as a soldier or sheriff while the outlaw hero works outside the law such as a bounty hunter or hired gun defense can be viewed as a criticism of the outlaw hero given his dissatisfaction with the law and favoring more of what he feels is right over what is lawful more visually evident however is how he is posed as an outdated outsider donning a work attire and a haircut more evocative of the 1950s than the 1990s defense is framed as a boiling point of the white-collar middle class that is aggravated by the system and acts out in the most surface level ways in one of his first acts of violence defense is angered by the prices of a convenience store and proceeds to smash up the food on the shelves defense swipes the baseball bat off the korean shop owner and proceeds to massacre merchandise until he receives what he deems as a fair cost for a soda a price that he believes is the way society should reflect rather than attack the system that most likely force these hikes in prices defense places responsibility of the price on the shop owner this becomes a common theme throughout the film a misplacement of villains for the mistaken outlaw hero to best defense proceeds to the whammy burger where he is angered by the breakfast menu not being available after 11. he has an uneasy conversation with the staff who gladly tell him their names and try to stay calmly with a smile that they're not serving breakfast at this time of the day frustrated defense holds the place at gunpoint so he can order off the breakfast menu as he continues talking however his mind wanders back to the lunch menu his dialogue meanders into speaking about how he's not that bad a guy even though he clearly is the bad guy in this scene he is dangerously handling a gun he does not know how to use and accidentally fires it during his demands his changing of the order to lunch instead of breakfast may make this tirade seem arbitrary some nitpicker probably jumped out of their seat to state how this character's motivations don't make any sense if he pulled out the gun for breakfast and ordered lunch instead but breakfast is not the point of the scene the point is that defense is fed up with a world he doesn't understand where breakfast is not served all day and fast food employees speak to you in an unnatural calmness defense later confronts city construction workers and remarks on how they bleed their budget to increase the cash flow for the following year's budget his response is to attack the workers and public property with a rocket launcher arguing that it'll give them something to fix so that the budget will be better spent it's this reasoning that he decides to favor the destruction of city roads despite being unaware of how to fire such a weapon relying on a child to show him how to use it this is a man who would rather burn down postmodern society than try to adapt or improve it his anger is greatly misplaced not just on targeting the workers but civilians and public property as well some might argue he wasn't specifically targeting civilians during this scene but he's not exactly a marksman with weapons either the actions of defense are based on being reactive and transgressive to what he perceives as the wrongs of the world this is made most clear when he stumbles into an army surplus store where the fascist white supremacist owner shows his admiration for defense the owner directly compares them as being the same in their philosophies of striking out against modernism but defense denies this comparison stating that he is no fascist but an american this disillusions him only slightly to realize the error of his ways but it also backs him into a corner of violence where all he can do is deliver his point bluntly with murder rather than reason now defense may not believe he is a fascist but his methods of trying to combat post-modernism and the betrayal of the american dream attract that very fascistic crowd defense may just want to go back to a time when the white-collar worker had a stable job for the ideal american lifestyle a lifestyle he feels was promised to him but the fascists also want to go back transgressing time to a point where they can be more openly homophobic racist sexist genocidal and just be a general [ __ ] they share the same cry that things were once great but we lost our way because of something societal and that we can go back to those good old days if we just break the rules reject modernism and embrace nationalism defense can't really give an astute defense for his position of society's wrongs past just saying well i miss this stuff but not that stuff worth noting is that defense is also deeply ignorant in his american perceptions he insults the korean store manager at one point asking if he knows how much money america has given to korea the korean store owner then asks if defense knows the answer and he doesn't only assuming that it must be a lot a lot of people who watch that scene between defense and the white supremacist may feel that it resonates more today april wolfe of la weekly wrote of this aspect applying to the 21st century in an article stating quote today we might see defense and the white supremacists as the infighting sides of the far right one couches racism in coded words like thug while the other wants an outright ethnic cleanse ultimately what both want is to return to their idea of a pure america unburdened by the concerns of minorities and women the quest of defense continues and little by little he comes to see how monstrous he has become he is even given a preview of his rampage when he watches helplessly as a protester is taken away by the police shouting for people to remember him few people will remember that guy for his fervent ramblings and all defense seems to take away from this event is that he needs to do something memorable something drastic something so that the american dream won't be forgotten defense reacts coldly and oftentimes surprised by his own actions of violence and rebellion he seems perplexed as though he never had to resort to such ugliness prior but feels that he must when the world has left him behind in a different era defense would be lauded as an example of the american dream for doing everything that he was told but now he believes he has been forced into the role of an outlaw hero a prospect that some of the deluded traditionalists flock towards and even hope to fulfill sergeant pendergrass however is posed as the official hero one who favors the law and argues that nobody is above it he is one day away from retirement and continues to do his job despite not being as valued by his department he had a daughter but she died long ago killing his dreams of being a father his wife is uneasy demanding that he come home and shed his law enforcement life quickly much like defense pendergrass also takes out his frustrations on the wrong targets namely his wife and fellow officers pendergrass displays just how much of his role has been reduced throughout the film all he can do within a police force that has kicked him aside is sling profanity at any rate the official hero he once was has degraded where he now finds himself more as the defense of holding to what he believes is the lawful thing to do pendergrast is easier to pity in this regard and that his actions are more socially acceptable of doing what he has been told even if his actions don't ultimately fulfill the moral ideal that the typical template of the official hero strives towards defense and pendergrass operate on a different level of morality but have their motives called into question throughout they represent an act of fantastical revenge a revenge fantasy if you will for being discarded by the workforce defense is fired and prendergrass is retiring they seek worth after employment feeling that the world has turned its back on them leaving them nowhere else to go in life and the film showcases the dangers and emptiness of such a life when it all seems to depend on work if that work is over is there anything left for them can they still be a person of value can they still be the american man they were told to be if they just ticked all the boxes literary critic irving howell wrote in his book politics and the novel on how men can be driven to such a flux with their idealism quote it is when men no longer feel that they have adequate choices in their styles of life when they conclude that there are no longer possibilities of honorable maneuver and compromise when they decide that the time has come for ultimate social loyalties and political decisions it is then that ideology begins to flourish ideology reflects a hardening of commitment the freezing of opinion into system the uniqueness of our history the freshness of our land the plentitude of our resources all these have made possible and rendered plausible a style of political improvisation and intellectual freewheeling the two characters go down pretty much the way we expect these types of heroes to go out the outlaw usually goes down in a blaze of glory while the official fades into the distance but they are not seen as the familiar archetypes of heroism at least in terms of how they are portrayed defense will not be remembered as the man who fought against the system but the man who shook things up just enough to become the bad guy for a day it takes him right up to the final scene to ask the question he should have been asking all along i'm the bad guy this baffled questioning is then followed up with the rant about how someone as hard working as him shouldn't be the villain but the hero instead he argues that he did everything that he was told and that america has lied to him he's on the right track but instead blames the individual serving under the american system rather than the system itself that led to this point in this case he uses plastic surgeons as an example but it could really be anybody defense states that they have lied to him but they could be anyone it could be his bosses the media the checkout guy at the grocery store it really doesn't matter as long as it is someone to blame and attack it's way easier to assault the manager at a food joint than the systemic ideal of the american dream being pushed forth by societal praxis it's more convenient for the angry white-collar worker to just assault an immigrant then be more critical of their world view and government pendergrass will not go quietly into his retirement but with one last case where he saves a child and guns down a suspect to showcase he's not too old for this [ __ ] now he is not wrong in how his climactic confrontation with defense finds him arguing that someone wronged by the american dream is not justified in going on such a tirade and yet he still plays his role by fulfilling the prophecy of the official hero where the official hero kills the bad guy and the outlaw hero is gunned down a classic western trope that defense all but begs for as it would be so perfect a conclusion it'd be just like those old western movies they don't quite make the same anymore right uh yeah sure weird hill to die on but hey at least you died this is also a hollow victory for pendergrass as defenses unarmed in the scene brandishing a water pistol pendergrass killed a man he could have easily taken in had he not overreacted to the actions expected of a cop and not played into the hands of defense his actions have not resolved any of the ills of society but rather furthered them that being said pendergrass does have one powerful statement in the climax where he states that the only thing that makes defense special is his daughter this is said to reason with defense that he has responsibilities to lead by example and thus something to live for trying to put things in perspective that life is precious it also hearkens to how pendergrass lost his own child but in a broader sense this also refers to stepping aside for the next generation and not making everything about yourself this ends up being a fatal decision as defense reasons that the right thing to do is to die at the hands of the police so that his daughter can gain his insurance money pendergrass argues that defense could live to see his daughter grow up but this is countered by defense refusing the embarrassment of imprisonment in his last few moments there's a tragic acceptance that his time is over in more ways than one it's a mixture of sorrow and release a cathartic end for enraged and seemingly betrayed white-collar workers but [Music] do most audiences get that falling down has been considered by some to be a comedy and how it targets the ills of society and indulges the desires of the newly disenfranchised american man to strike out against it as i said it's a revenge fantasy and it may resonate for someone who feels that the price of soda is too high or that fast food managers are bad people for not serving you breakfast after 11. it's also kind of fun to see michael douglas in such an explosive role i admit but it's important not to forget who the bad guy is here because it's not the korean store owner the fast food employees the construction workers or even the upper class golfers on the golf course for as easy as that would be to place blame it's defense who is the bad guy oh and the fascist surplus store owner obviously the world has left men like defense and pendergrass behind for better or worse it has also left this idea of the official and outlaw hero behind as well we need to let the old and regressive ways crumble rather than keep trying to slap them together with crazy glue preserving a past that has long since decayed we need to go forward not backward in solving societal issues and none of those issues with the progressive shifting of society will be resolved by drawing a gun on the manager at the whammy burger no matter how much you wish it would and if you believe it would then well yeah you're the bad guy maybe just try to order breakfast earlier i guess you change for the faults a peaceful man lord says who's about to be pushed 85 85 it doesn't give me enough money for the phone call drink 85 cent you pay a goal a little too far i stay

Channel: MoviesWithMark

Views: 55,289

Keywords: Falling Down, Michael Douglas, Robert Duvall, American, man, working class, film, video essay, Joel Schumacher, white collar, 1990s, Los Angeles

Id: 80bPmSCcxk0

Length: 15min 22sec (922 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 05 2021