Interpretive Analysis of Any Sort of Art ; lit, film, tv, ect

"Falling Down , a 1993 film directed by Joe Schumacher and starring Michael Douglas remains as relevant today as it was when it was first released , perhaps more so

Douglas plays a character , known for most of the movie only as D-FENS after his vanity license plate , who has simply had enough . Stuck in LA traffic , he abandons his car and takes off across the city on a quest to meet with his daughter so that he might celebrate her birthday with her

D-FENS , whom we later come to know as William Foster , even

at this extremely early point in the film , is miles away from having a rational reason to do anything , however . He 's going somewhere but , mostly , he 's already gone . In fact , Foster 's life has probably been too rational , so rational and predictable that the walls with which he held back the frustrations in his life , as the title suggests , are falling down

The film manages to play to most people 's worst instincts righteousness , revenge , vigilantism , without making the character into a monster . By the time he 's gone ballistic on a Korean shopkeeper for price gouging and beaten a Latino gang down before they could take his briefcase , it seems like the movie might turn into some sort of quasi-racist white man 's revenge story . But , in later scenes , we find Foster repulsed by the racism and homophobia of a Nazi shopkeeper . We see him loose his composure when confronted with a white fast-food employee who takes the rules of his employer to their ridiculous extreme . Foster is not concerned with race but with actions

The film breaks with the stereotypical vigilante film on several counts . Where Dirty Harry had his famous "You feel lucky , punk machismo , Foster is simply going mad . There is no joy and no satisfaction in what he 's doing . No wrongs are made right , no "little guy " avenged , the story , through and through , is about darkness

Some critics felt the film did , indeed , constitute a shrill , righteous get-even sort of epic (Gonsalves ?3 ) while others disagreed , finding the character to be more complex and interesting (Ebert ?2 . I found the movie to be compelling . Douglas does take on a role that presents real danger for the actor . His character , if poorly portrayed , could have been an unsympathetic racist . The movie could have been taken as a rabid fantasy where the violence that lurks under the surface turns out to be the only way the world can be made right . But it 's more than that

Foster , by the end of the film , is neither hero nor anti-hero . He 's a human being pushed too far . He may have been a nice guy in his former life , probably a little dull , but his breakdown has been coming for a while . As the film progresses , there are flashbacks where we see that Foster 's violent temper has manifest itself before against his ex-wife and daughter . He 's lost his job , he...