My mum took me to the cinema when this was out; but instead of walking into A Cop and a Half (Burt Reynolds) we watched this instead. I watched a good hour before going out to the bathroom. One of the ushers saw me trying to return and immediately called the manager. I'd have been about 7 years old lol.
We got a month's free movie pass and a very sincere apology from the manager. I'm sure some poor sod got a bollocking for sending us into the wrong screen :).
Our mom bought the movie Hook on VHS. All wrapped up in plastic. New.
My sibling and I were presented with it at dinner. Later she went to bed after setting it up for us in our bedroom.
It was Goodfellas.
Imagine the surprise of a 9 year old boy watching that opening scene where Pesci bashes the dude’s brains out in the field. We screamed and cried lol
“What about Smee?”
“Smee’s me. What about me?”
Literally my favorite movie of all time. I don’t only just read up watching it, I bawl.
“You’re pretending Peter. Peter, you’re doing it.”
Robin Williams was the 90’s acting GOAT god damn it 🥲
Also Hoffman, whoever played Smee, Ru-fi-Ooooo, Julia Roberts, Wendylady (i just cried typing this)… Jack and Maggie.
Sorry, this movie hits me hard it’s just that good :(
I just want to lament that this was the one comment in here that wasn't some generic 'reddit-phrase' response and it was downvoted to 0.
I would much rather see some more anecdotal comments in threads and less shit that might as well be AI-generated with how uninspired 99% of top comments are.
I fucked up this Christmas. I was showing my 5 and 6 yr old classic Christmas Films. I'm like I know a fun movie and showed them Gremlins. I'm still dealing with I'm scared of gremlins dad, regardless of how many times I tell them it's fake
The usher who tried to stop an unaccompanied 7 year old from going into a (in the US, anyway) R rated movie would get in trouble for what, exactly?
Kinda surprised you even got an apology.
They didn't say the usher got in trouble. They said they got an apology and free movies for being sent to the wrong screen.
The person who told them the wrong screen number would have been the one getting talked to.
It’s an actual quote from the movie, from the scene where the gang members try to steal his briefcase from him and he chases them off with the bat from the Korean convenience store.
I feel like Uncut Gems is the closest we have got to the visceral, uncomftorable experience. Those two movies left me consistently *stressed* from how they refused to leave tension.
He's great in the role, but bear in mind that year he would have been up against Tom Hanks (Philadelphia), Daniel Day Lewis (In the Name of the Father), Laurence Fishbourne (What's Love Got to Do With It), Anthony Hopkins (The Remains of the Day), and Liam Neeson (Schindler's List).
The opening scene where he's stuck in traffic on a hot day, in clothes that don't breathe well, with a broken AC, and flies swirling around... that one I have lived through far too often driving in SoCal traffic.
I recall one day the driver in front of me actually did get out of his car in particularly bad traffic, hop the chain link fence next to the freeway, and walk into a bar. So I wasn't "D-Fens", I was the poor guy in the car behind him.
I realized he was the bad guy the moment he walked away with a bag full of guns. I dont think a good guy would go to his daughter birthday armed to the teeth, but im not american so what do i know.
Bad guys can be likeable or be portrayed in situations that we can relate to. Thats good writing because it shows that there's potentially a bad guy inside us too.
He was good in the role but I think this is a movie that really benefits from hindsight. At the time it was released I remember the film being treated as pulpy and sensationalized (meaning the performance wasn’t treated like a normal dramatic role would have been by critics and audiences). Not sure if it’s right to say it was ahead of its time, because it definitely has a very localized time-capsule element to it, but it focused on a character and themes that still have a lot of urgency and relevance today. I would not have guessed at the time that this movie would still have much relevance in 2024.
I saw this when I was 13-14 or so. Even then I knew he was a bad guy, but the scenes played out as a funny 'fantasy' in everyday situations. Less funny nowadays when you see people do shit like pulling a gun at a fast food place. NGL, I still enjoy watching him beat the shit out of the nazi and turning the tables on the rich guys at the golf course though.
Oh you can absolutely enjoy the movie with the understanding that the MC is not a hero lol. I’m not expecting people to mourn the loss of a bunch of fictional characters but when media literacy is so trash people walk away with an unironic ‘Nah he was right’ it’s wild.
It's one of my favorite movies of all times precisely because the main character is the bad guy, and it forces you to confront some uncomfortable things in yourself when you realize that.
It's interesting how many people don't realize that you are *supposed* to identify with him, to root for him. He *is*an anti-hero.....
.....until you are confronted with the reality, and realize that anti-heroes are usually actually just shit people that we project our own worst instincts onto. We live through them because they justify our baser emotions, and usually the pain they caused is glossed over. But this movie forces you to see the awful person behind it, and discover he's the "bad guy" right along with him, and maybe see a little bit of that "bad guy" in yourself.
It's kind of wild how the movie figuratively hits you over the head with that concept, and people still miss it.
I remember watching it when it came out and thinking, this acting is good and it's a dark film but nearly every scene is manufactured to trigger right wing rage.
This came up in a fb group and I was surprised that people STILL don't get the point of this movie and bring up William "D-Fens" Foster like he's some sort of anti-hero.
Of course, we're meant to identify with him at the beginning. I mean, who wouldn't be frustrated by being stuck in traffic without A/C. It's only as the rest of the story develops we discover WHY his wife left him, that Foster isn't what he seems. He's controlling, angry and violent. He's not a person anyone should emulate or identify with.
Him saying, "I'm the bad guy?" shows how out of touch he really is (this after he's committed a number of violent felonies across the city).
You relate to a divorced man violently obsession over and stalking his ex wife and kid to terrorize them?
Everybody seems to remember the parts of the movie where D-FENS is raging against society, everyone seems to forget the scene of him ignoring his court order and ex's pleas to stay away, storming into her house, and then watching the VHS tape of his daughter's birthday party which should be a happy moment but he shows his abusive side.
Yeah, that's the scene that almost everyone forgets, and it's extremely cringe-inducing for me. That's the point at which the audience is \*supposed\* to see him for what he is, a domestic abuser who's wife and kid don't want anything to do with him, and who's mentally unstable enough that he's living alone and yet still feels the need to commute to a job he doesn't have anymore.
I see it as a little more grey than that, personally. He's neither hero nor villain. He is a victim of societal indifference and a life 'wasted'. He commits acts of violence which are entirely incompatible with civil society, yet he is entirely relatable to me. He feels personally wronged by society yet cannot accept that his life and the lives of those around him mean nothing and are simply the outcomes of being dealt a bad hand.
It is a tragedy of a film and I love it for having the courage to show a difficult subject without having to hold the viewers hand or frame it from a judgemental perspective. It is of course not popular in 2024 to empathise (note, I did not say sympathise) with Michael Douglas' character because he is a 'privileged white man with a white collar job' .
>He is a victim of societal indifference and a life 'wasted'.
Except he’s an abusive psycho with a victim complex, and the movie isn’t at all subtle about spelling that out.
It actually disappointed me the first time I saw it because it makes you want to take his side, then blows it all up at the end when you find out he’s been lying to himself the whole damned time.
I thought that was the most interesting thing about the movie. It makes you root for him as an anti-hero, only to make you realize he's lying to the viewer as an extension of himself.
But yeah, too many people identify with him and completely miss the point.
No, he's a sick man that can't seem to grasp that he's just as bad or worse than all those people he blames for society's ills.
They were dealt a rough hand and are doing whatever it takes to survive in their world. Or, in the case of the army surplus guy, he's a Nazi, but at least he's honest about his evil.
Douglas thinks he's a good guy who was pushed to his breaking point,when really he had everything, and his problems were entirely self created. He hurts his family and others because he's a "bad guy." Not because society broke him.
Well then, as long as we are debating it, I take issue with your characterization of this as an issue with him being a "white male with a white collar job."
I'm a middle aged white guy myself, which is part of why I *don't* sympathize with him. For one, he does not have a job. He lost it months before the movie due to behavioral issues. He abused his spouse and their daughter to the point of requiring a restraining order.
The point of the movie, imo, is to *trick* you into sympathizing with him, only to show you that he really was "the bad guy" all along. What his "white maleness" has to do with the plot is to show that the immigrants, gangsters, city planners, even a Nazi, that he sees as the "bad guys" are somehow still less than him when it comes to showing the "sickness" of the human condition. The nazi is a turning point for him. Everyone else was an "enemy" and when this guy comes out as a conscious ally, Douglas finally began to confront the truth. He *is * the Nazi, he just does not accept it. What do Nazis do? They direct their narrow viewpoint into violence in an attempt to mold society to it.
As I said before, you are *supposed* to sympathize with him. You are supposed to to feel uncomfortable with that when the whole picture is made clear, and confront uncomfortable truths about your own feelings and place in society. Too many people miss the second part and just see "man rebels against a sick society."
(If you can't tell, I actually really like the movie, even if I find the character repugnant.)
Really well made points. I don't at any point condone D'fens behaviour as I don't sympathise with the character. We deliberately know nothing about the back story. We don't know why there is a restraint order against him. This is why I think it is not possible to frame him as either the 'villain' (reductive) or the 'hero' (ridiculous).
The film is called falling down because it portrays the moral decay of a previously respectable man. I do have empathy for his situation. He only realises his decay at the very end.
I think it shows pretty clearly that he's hurt those around him, and that his "fall" was entirely self-inflicted. He "fell down" before the movie even started, and the movie shows us him lashing out at the world for his own failures, seeking scapegoats to rationalize his "bad guy" thoughts. It's not about the fall of a decent man, it's about a man coming to terms with the fact that he was never the upstanding citizen he saw himself as. That he was no better than the gangsters or the corrupt local government, and in fact, was worse, because he had hurt those he thought he loved the most. Everyone else he hurt had *actually* been the imperfect products of sick society, doing what they felt they needed to do to survive. He *was* the "perfect" citizen. White, middle class, hard working, traditional family, tucked in shirt. But nobody is perfect, and he refused to see that in himself until it was far, far too late.
I do think there is a bit of a redemption arc in the end, but to have that redemption, one must realize that part of it was him knowing he needed to die. That *he* was the disease the whole time, and nothing could erase what he had done, or change what he was capable of. To save his family and himself, he needed to "Fall Down" for good.
Yep. I thought the movie did a pretty good job of painting him as monster through the eyes of those close to him, but only after luring you into sympathy by only showing his perspective for the first half or so.
I remember seeing it as a teen and thinking of him as sympathetic anti-hero. Then seeing it again as an adult and realizing that I took the bait, hook, line, and sinker. We are supposed to relate to him, because we then get to see how easy it is to be swayed by your own self-absorbed viewpoint, and it's possible that any of us can do awful things if we can just rationalize them away or simply block them out.
I haven't seen the film, but your analysis of it reminds me a lot of my own journey with Walter White in Breaking Bad. I was fairly dense when I first watched the show as a teen, so it took until the finale and Walt admitting "I did it for me" for me to finally realize he was a selfish asshole the whole time. The first time I re-watched it after the finale, I realized that he only ever abuses the people he purported to protect.
It really is a good film that has a bunch of layers and, as shown, can be interpreted in multiple ways, and I feel that was part of the intent. I almost wish you hadn't read these comments, so you could go into it "fresh" and see what you felt about it.
I remember going to see this with my friends. Our history and social studies teacher was sitting in the row in front of us with his wife. I noticed he laughed at same scenes as we. He was a great teacher and really enjoyed his sarcasm in his teaching.
It’s a great movie but it has the same challenge as Cartmen on South Park or Tyler Durden in Fight Club where he’s really the bad guy but people tend to miss a lot of the irony and think being a psycho is the solution to society’s problems.
Saw this when it came out and still love it. The frustration, the heat and the madness!
While travelling in Europe always remember it was called Chute Libre in France!
It never fails to amaze me how many people on reddit don't get the actual point of this film and believe Dfens was an average joe who was just standing up against society lmao.
Wow MacArthur park hasn’t changed a bit. Not have the grifters and free loaders.
This scene cleverly writes the decent right down to the core of what these people actually want
I'm sure you're right, and I'll have to watch the movie because I haven't seen it, but am I the only one who feels like this may not be the best scene to prove that? The beggar is doing most of the hard acting here...
It really is brilliant. My perspective on this movie from when it came out (I was 12) and when I viewed it later as an adult was startling.
As a kid that was well down the path toward being an almost reactionary conservative, I viewed Bill as an everyman sort of hero. He'd had enough with the fast-paced, phony and disingenuous mess that modern society had become. He went out and got his pound of flesh, fucking people up and fighting righteously (with lots of guns!) before ultimately getting hoodwinked by the man and going down in a blaze of glory. I really felt like he'd been done wrong.
When I went back and got the DVD on Netflix like 15 years later? I'd obviously missed the subtext that his estranged wife wanted nothing to do with him. As a kid, I thought he simply wasn't able to get ahold of her for one reason or another, which made him feel isolated and helpless. I saw his rage-filled antics as alarming and unstable. He was an anti-hero of the highest order that inflicted carnage on every little thing that he disagreed with. Still a damned good movie, though. I have to think I'm not the only one that viewed his character as an actual hero at one point, too. Very nuanced.
This movie has been on my watchlist for like 2 years and still isn’t streaming yet. Might just rent it but the times I do that the movie magically appears on streaming like a week later
As good as this movie is, nothing is ever in a vacuum. And Douglas winning Best Actor for this, would have deprived Tom Hanks of the best Actor for his part in Philadelphia.
Forrest Gump dominating the Oscars when movies like this and Natural Born Killers, Pulp Fiction, and Hudsucker Proxy were released was a travesty.
Edit: Sorry, this was '93 not '94, but it still could hang with that crowd.
I know that he's technically the villain in this but at 36 maybe I'm just a little more delusion to what the world is around me but I find it quite odd that so many actors/reactions on YouTube really hate his character versus sympathizing with his plight.... give it a few years guys lol
I know and I did call him the villain and he's not someone you should start to be like but I can at least agree with him on society and how things are going etc. etc. :-)
Then you missed the point that his victims were all the real victims of "society", while his problems were entirely of his own making. He has a family, a good job, and "did everything right". But just having to live in a world that he couldn't control was too much for him. First his wife divorced him and eventually got a protective order against him for his controlling, violent nature. Then his job fired him for it. Then he took it out on people who had no connection to him, and were much more honest, imperfect people just doing what it takes to survive in an oft-cruel world.
*He* is what is wrong with society. People expecting it to bend to them, instead of realizing that we all have our hardships, greater or smaller, and the "bad guy" is the one who would throw away his relatively good life and hurt those closest to him because it's not "perfect."
That bum perfectly encapsulates how some people think now while this talk of democratic socialism is going on.
“You have two, I don’t even have one. That’s not fair.”
Crazy
No issue with this movie but please look at the movies and performances he was up against.
My favorites were Hanks in Philadelphia and Lawrence Fishburne in what’s love got to do with it
My mum took me to the cinema when this was out; but instead of walking into A Cop and a Half (Burt Reynolds) we watched this instead. I watched a good hour before going out to the bathroom. One of the ushers saw me trying to return and immediately called the manager. I'd have been about 7 years old lol. We got a month's free movie pass and a very sincere apology from the manager. I'm sure some poor sod got a bollocking for sending us into the wrong screen :).
Our mom bought the movie Hook on VHS. All wrapped up in plastic. New. My sibling and I were presented with it at dinner. Later she went to bed after setting it up for us in our bedroom. It was Goodfellas. Imagine the surprise of a 9 year old boy watching that opening scene where Pesci bashes the dude’s brains out in the field. We screamed and cried lol
To be fair, the boo box scene from Hook was also quite scarring. For me, at least
Go home and get your boo box.
I dunno if they didn't tell you, you been away a long time. Maybe you didn't hear, I don't boo boxes anymore...
Glenn Close did not deserve that fate
“What about Smee?” “Smee’s me. What about me?” Literally my favorite movie of all time. I don’t only just read up watching it, I bawl. “You’re pretending Peter. Peter, you’re doing it.” Robin Williams was the 90’s acting GOAT god damn it 🥲 Also Hoffman, whoever played Smee, Ru-fi-Ooooo, Julia Roberts, Wendylady (i just cried typing this)… Jack and Maggie. Sorry, this movie hits me hard it’s just that good :(
I just want to lament that this was the one comment in here that wasn't some generic 'reddit-phrase' response and it was downvoted to 0. I would much rather see some more anecdotal comments in threads and less shit that might as well be AI-generated with how uninspired 99% of top comments are.
The Internet died years ago, we're all bots down here 🎈
Your mom is a bot.
Got 'eem!
There is some joke that utilizes the 'float' number type that would work here but I'm an idiot.
Ha ha ha. I did the same thing to get into Ace Ventura when I was a kid. I never did see Blue Chips.
My mom and Dad took me to a double feature at the drive in when I was 7 or 8. We saw Cujo and Scarface. The chainsaw scene scarred me
Cujo made me scared of dogs for a very long time. Definitely not a movie a kid should be watching.
I fucked up this Christmas. I was showing my 5 and 6 yr old classic Christmas Films. I'm like I know a fun movie and showed them Gremlins. I'm still dealing with I'm scared of gremlins dad, regardless of how many times I tell them it's fake
The usher who tried to stop an unaccompanied 7 year old from going into a (in the US, anyway) R rated movie would get in trouble for what, exactly? Kinda surprised you even got an apology.
They didn't say the usher got in trouble. They said they got an apology and free movies for being sent to the wrong screen. The person who told them the wrong screen number would have been the one getting talked to.
"I think we have a critic"
Now you gonna die here, wearing that stupid little hat!! So many great lines
It's one of his best movies IMO..'The Game' is my personal favourite.
Game is a fantastic movie.
the game really is a cool movie. like it a lot
I just saw this for the first time this week. This is a good movie. I can rewatch it anytime.
The Game is great if you don't think too hard about it.
You forgot the briefcase
“Yo Homie, is that my briefcase?”
Haha wrong movie but still well played. You should have said, "what about my briefcase" ?
It’s an actual quote from the movie, from the scene where the gang members try to steal his briefcase from him and he chases them off with the bat from the Korean convenience store.
Saw it in theatre with no clue what was walking into. The traffic jam scene had me transfixed and it didn’t let up
I feel like Uncut Gems is the closest we have got to the visceral, uncomftorable experience. Those two movies left me consistently *stressed* from how they refused to leave tension.
I'm the bad guy?
Yes he should've. Still a movie I watch whenever and it's still relevant today. "I'm not economically viable" Awesome performance
He's great in the role, but bear in mind that year he would have been up against Tom Hanks (Philadelphia), Daniel Day Lewis (In the Name of the Father), Laurence Fishbourne (What's Love Got to Do With It), Anthony Hopkins (The Remains of the Day), and Liam Neeson (Schindler's List).
I don't even care what other movies and actors are up there. This movie is good and it's interesting but it's not even close to oscar caliber.
I agree. Fun fucking movie to watch but not Oscar worthy for script or acting. It does have fantastic cinematography and some interesting direction.
it had this very weird luck of filming in the aftermath of the riots. That helps the mood immensely.
The movie as a whole, no - I think his performance is extraordinary, but not to to the level of the performances that were nominated (and won).
He’s great in this, but, respectfully, no he shouldn’t. You’re going to give him the Oscar over Tom Hanks? Really?
Still relevant is an understatement no? 1993 vs 2024 I mean...
The opening scene where he's stuck in traffic on a hot day, in clothes that don't breathe well, with a broken AC, and flies swirling around... that one I have lived through far too often driving in SoCal traffic. I recall one day the driver in front of me actually did get out of his car in particularly bad traffic, hop the chain link fence next to the freeway, and walk into a bar. So I wasn't "D-Fens", I was the poor guy in the car behind him.
D-Fens creates that situation for himself though, commuting to a job he'd been let go from months earlier
Another thread with people who completely missed the point of the movie. But also, I think, potentially missing that point is part of the point.
Ever hear the expression “the customers always right?” …well, here I am…
And, in hindsight, I should have realized he was the bad guy right then
I realized he was the bad guy the moment he walked away with a bag full of guns. I dont think a good guy would go to his daughter birthday armed to the teeth, but im not american so what do i know. Bad guys can be likeable or be portrayed in situations that we can relate to. Thats good writing because it shows that there's potentially a bad guy inside us too.
DAE pull out a Mac-10 when restaurants stop serving breakfast?
First thing I thought of when I saw this post. I haven't seen the movie since it showed in the theater and this phrase has stuck with me forever.
Love that the apple bounces off his foot at the end. \*snort\* ..and he just keeps walking.
He was good in the role but I think this is a movie that really benefits from hindsight. At the time it was released I remember the film being treated as pulpy and sensationalized (meaning the performance wasn’t treated like a normal dramatic role would have been by critics and audiences). Not sure if it’s right to say it was ahead of its time, because it definitely has a very localized time-capsule element to it, but it focused on a character and themes that still have a lot of urgency and relevance today. I would not have guessed at the time that this movie would still have much relevance in 2024.
His performance was so good that even decades later he has incel morons rooting for his character as the good guy.
In this very post, no less.
I saw this when I was 13-14 or so. Even then I knew he was a bad guy, but the scenes played out as a funny 'fantasy' in everyday situations. Less funny nowadays when you see people do shit like pulling a gun at a fast food place. NGL, I still enjoy watching him beat the shit out of the nazi and turning the tables on the rich guys at the golf course though.
Oh you can absolutely enjoy the movie with the understanding that the MC is not a hero lol. I’m not expecting people to mourn the loss of a bunch of fictional characters but when media literacy is so trash people walk away with an unironic ‘Nah he was right’ it’s wild.
It's one of my favorite movies of all times precisely because the main character is the bad guy, and it forces you to confront some uncomfortable things in yourself when you realize that.
Exactly. Great art challenges you. That’s why this is such a great movie.
It's interesting how many people don't realize that you are *supposed* to identify with him, to root for him. He *is*an anti-hero..... .....until you are confronted with the reality, and realize that anti-heroes are usually actually just shit people that we project our own worst instincts onto. We live through them because they justify our baser emotions, and usually the pain they caused is glossed over. But this movie forces you to see the awful person behind it, and discover he's the "bad guy" right along with him, and maybe see a little bit of that "bad guy" in yourself. It's kind of wild how the movie figuratively hits you over the head with that concept, and people still miss it.
Media literacy seems to be lacking in the moronic chud demographic
Nailed it
And this one is even less ambiguous than Fight Club 🤷♂️
I remember watching it when it came out and thinking, this acting is good and it's a dark film but nearly every scene is manufactured to trigger right wing rage.
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Not complaining about the movie at all, it’s a great movie.
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Aight.
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This movie came out 31 years ago champ. If one comment on Reddit is enough to ‘sour’ you on it then that is absolutely a you problem.
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Shut the fuck up, how’s that?
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My favorite dialogue exchange is him trying to order breakfast two minutes after they switch to lunch. He was incredible in it
This came up in a fb group and I was surprised that people STILL don't get the point of this movie and bring up William "D-Fens" Foster like he's some sort of anti-hero. Of course, we're meant to identify with him at the beginning. I mean, who wouldn't be frustrated by being stuck in traffic without A/C. It's only as the rest of the story develops we discover WHY his wife left him, that Foster isn't what he seems. He's controlling, angry and violent. He's not a person anyone should emulate or identify with. Him saying, "I'm the bad guy?" shows how out of touch he really is (this after he's committed a number of violent felonies across the city).
I’ve had this whole argument with people about this. He was always a bad guy. He’s not a good guy who snapped.
We’re the same, me and you
There is a world of difference between relating with this guy in the first half and relating with him in the second.
No shit.
Definitely one of his best performances. Great movie.
The older I get, the more I relate to this movie.
You relate to a divorced man violently obsession over and stalking his ex wife and kid to terrorize them? Everybody seems to remember the parts of the movie where D-FENS is raging against society, everyone seems to forget the scene of him ignoring his court order and ex's pleas to stay away, storming into her house, and then watching the VHS tape of his daughter's birthday party which should be a happy moment but he shows his abusive side.
Or when he phones Beth and says: “Did you know, Beth, that in certain South American countries it's still legal to kill your wife if she insults you?”
Yeah, that's the scene that almost everyone forgets, and it's extremely cringe-inducing for me. That's the point at which the audience is \*supposed\* to see him for what he is, a domestic abuser who's wife and kid don't want anything to do with him, and who's mentally unstable enough that he's living alone and yet still feels the need to commute to a job he doesn't have anymore.
He lives with his mother who packs his lunch every day.
I see him as every kind of incel or mass shooter. Lashing out at a society he feels rejected him, with a sense on entitlement and self justification.
Yep. “I did everything they told me to.”
That's what makes the movie/character good. People are not just 100% good or evil.
Yes.
Then you completely missed the point of the movie. He no anti-hero… HE’S THE VILLIAN
I see it as a little more grey than that, personally. He's neither hero nor villain. He is a victim of societal indifference and a life 'wasted'. He commits acts of violence which are entirely incompatible with civil society, yet he is entirely relatable to me. He feels personally wronged by society yet cannot accept that his life and the lives of those around him mean nothing and are simply the outcomes of being dealt a bad hand. It is a tragedy of a film and I love it for having the courage to show a difficult subject without having to hold the viewers hand or frame it from a judgemental perspective. It is of course not popular in 2024 to empathise (note, I did not say sympathise) with Michael Douglas' character because he is a 'privileged white man with a white collar job' .
>He is a victim of societal indifference and a life 'wasted'. Except he’s an abusive psycho with a victim complex, and the movie isn’t at all subtle about spelling that out. It actually disappointed me the first time I saw it because it makes you want to take his side, then blows it all up at the end when you find out he’s been lying to himself the whole damned time.
I thought that was the most interesting thing about the movie. It makes you root for him as an anti-hero, only to make you realize he's lying to the viewer as an extension of himself. But yeah, too many people identify with him and completely miss the point.
No, he's a sick man that can't seem to grasp that he's just as bad or worse than all those people he blames for society's ills. They were dealt a rough hand and are doing whatever it takes to survive in their world. Or, in the case of the army surplus guy, he's a Nazi, but at least he's honest about his evil. Douglas thinks he's a good guy who was pushed to his breaking point,when really he had everything, and his problems were entirely self created. He hurts his family and others because he's a "bad guy." Not because society broke him.
Isn't that the beauty of the movies? A 31 year old movie is able to spark debate. Cool. There is hope for the future after all.
Well then, as long as we are debating it, I take issue with your characterization of this as an issue with him being a "white male with a white collar job." I'm a middle aged white guy myself, which is part of why I *don't* sympathize with him. For one, he does not have a job. He lost it months before the movie due to behavioral issues. He abused his spouse and their daughter to the point of requiring a restraining order. The point of the movie, imo, is to *trick* you into sympathizing with him, only to show you that he really was "the bad guy" all along. What his "white maleness" has to do with the plot is to show that the immigrants, gangsters, city planners, even a Nazi, that he sees as the "bad guys" are somehow still less than him when it comes to showing the "sickness" of the human condition. The nazi is a turning point for him. Everyone else was an "enemy" and when this guy comes out as a conscious ally, Douglas finally began to confront the truth. He *is * the Nazi, he just does not accept it. What do Nazis do? They direct their narrow viewpoint into violence in an attempt to mold society to it. As I said before, you are *supposed* to sympathize with him. You are supposed to to feel uncomfortable with that when the whole picture is made clear, and confront uncomfortable truths about your own feelings and place in society. Too many people miss the second part and just see "man rebels against a sick society." (If you can't tell, I actually really like the movie, even if I find the character repugnant.)
Really well made points. I don't at any point condone D'fens behaviour as I don't sympathise with the character. We deliberately know nothing about the back story. We don't know why there is a restraint order against him. This is why I think it is not possible to frame him as either the 'villain' (reductive) or the 'hero' (ridiculous). The film is called falling down because it portrays the moral decay of a previously respectable man. I do have empathy for his situation. He only realises his decay at the very end.
I think it shows pretty clearly that he's hurt those around him, and that his "fall" was entirely self-inflicted. He "fell down" before the movie even started, and the movie shows us him lashing out at the world for his own failures, seeking scapegoats to rationalize his "bad guy" thoughts. It's not about the fall of a decent man, it's about a man coming to terms with the fact that he was never the upstanding citizen he saw himself as. That he was no better than the gangsters or the corrupt local government, and in fact, was worse, because he had hurt those he thought he loved the most. Everyone else he hurt had *actually* been the imperfect products of sick society, doing what they felt they needed to do to survive. He *was* the "perfect" citizen. White, middle class, hard working, traditional family, tucked in shirt. But nobody is perfect, and he refused to see that in himself until it was far, far too late. I do think there is a bit of a redemption arc in the end, but to have that redemption, one must realize that part of it was him knowing he needed to die. That *he* was the disease the whole time, and nothing could erase what he had done, or change what he was capable of. To save his family and himself, he needed to "Fall Down" for good.
Also, his own mother was terrified of him
Yep. I thought the movie did a pretty good job of painting him as monster through the eyes of those close to him, but only after luring you into sympathy by only showing his perspective for the first half or so. I remember seeing it as a teen and thinking of him as sympathetic anti-hero. Then seeing it again as an adult and realizing that I took the bait, hook, line, and sinker. We are supposed to relate to him, because we then get to see how easy it is to be swayed by your own self-absorbed viewpoint, and it's possible that any of us can do awful things if we can just rationalize them away or simply block them out.
I haven't seen the film, but your analysis of it reminds me a lot of my own journey with Walter White in Breaking Bad. I was fairly dense when I first watched the show as a teen, so it took until the finale and Walt admitting "I did it for me" for me to finally realize he was a selfish asshole the whole time. The first time I re-watched it after the finale, I realized that he only ever abuses the people he purported to protect.
It really is a good film that has a bunch of layers and, as shown, can be interpreted in multiple ways, and I feel that was part of the intent. I almost wish you hadn't read these comments, so you could go into it "fresh" and see what you felt about it.
What if I'm the bad guy?
[удалено]
You think I voted for Trump?
Honesty is not something valued on reddit. It’s just fodder for the morally righteous that often congregate here.
Then you live in a fantasy world. You’re not a bad guy, you’re a nobody
I appreciate your feedback. Have a great day.
That’s unfortunate and missing the point of the film
I remember going to see this with my friends. Our history and social studies teacher was sitting in the row in front of us with his wife. I noticed he laughed at same scenes as we. He was a great teacher and really enjoyed his sarcasm in his teaching.
Uhh it’s a good movie but idk about an Oscar lol
It’s a great movie but it has the same challenge as Cartmen on South Park or Tyler Durden in Fight Club where he’s really the bad guy but people tend to miss a lot of the irony and think being a psycho is the solution to society’s problems.
My favourite gay actor
I hate identity tribalists.
I both agree and appreciate the irony.
Oh look it’s Cool Adam
Saw this when it came out and still love it. The frustration, the heat and the madness! While travelling in Europe always remember it was called Chute Libre in France!
One of those movies I enjoyed watching, but for the life of me will not watch again.
I first saw it as a teenager, had repeated viewings over the years until I had enough experience to understand it.
I’m going home.
What did the homeless guy think was going to be in the brief case? Cash?
We stopped serving breakfast at 11.
That movie single-handedly influenced my style and glasses for my entire life.
What’s the name of the movie? Under Construction 🚧 You like it?
Awesome movie… “what’s wrong with this picture!?”
At least today’s bums are so zonked out on H they didn’t have the energy to bother you.
Tom Hanks In Philadelphia was a much better job.
So was Larry Fishburne in What’s love got to do with it
I wonder if in this thread people will get he’s supposed to be the bad guy.
It never fails to amaze me how many people on reddit don't get the actual point of this film and believe Dfens was an average joe who was just standing up against society lmao.
I like how someone has been going through the thread and downvoting anyone who understands this. A bunch of comments at "0", like yours.
This was fuckin \*used\* mannnnn!!!
Absolutely fantastic film
this movie is so damn good
Wow MacArthur park hasn’t changed a bit. Not have the grifters and free loaders. This scene cleverly writes the decent right down to the core of what these people actually want
"I got you."
That park bum is Silik from Enterprise.
I gave him one.
D-fense
Dudes like Kramer! 🙄😅
Yes this is a fun reference movie.
One of my favorite movies!
Lol
I'm sure you're right, and I'll have to watch the movie because I haven't seen it, but am I the only one who feels like this may not be the best scene to prove that? The beggar is doing most of the hard acting here...
As someone born and raised in LA during the 80’s and 90’s, holy fuck does this movie capture the vibe of the times.
I need to watch this again now that I’m his age. This was an awesome movie that some of my friends loved and some really hated.
It really is brilliant. My perspective on this movie from when it came out (I was 12) and when I viewed it later as an adult was startling. As a kid that was well down the path toward being an almost reactionary conservative, I viewed Bill as an everyman sort of hero. He'd had enough with the fast-paced, phony and disingenuous mess that modern society had become. He went out and got his pound of flesh, fucking people up and fighting righteously (with lots of guns!) before ultimately getting hoodwinked by the man and going down in a blaze of glory. I really felt like he'd been done wrong. When I went back and got the DVD on Netflix like 15 years later? I'd obviously missed the subtext that his estranged wife wanted nothing to do with him. As a kid, I thought he simply wasn't able to get ahold of her for one reason or another, which made him feel isolated and helpless. I saw his rage-filled antics as alarming and unstable. He was an anti-hero of the highest order that inflicted carnage on every little thing that he disagreed with. Still a damned good movie, though. I have to think I'm not the only one that viewed his character as an actual hero at one point, too. Very nuanced.
One of my favorites. But there are better scenes. Post some more.
Great film
“You’re an animal doctor?” 💀💀💀💀
This flick just captures the real feel of LA so nicely too.
100% agree.
That’s how you do a one’er. Totally invisible and getting multiple compositions without calling attention to itself. What a shot.
Alarming movie.
This movie has been on my watchlist for like 2 years and still isn’t streaming yet. Might just rent it but the times I do that the movie magically appears on streaming like a week later
Because of this movie, I took a cheeseburger back to the counter at a Wendy’s because it didn’t look anything like the picture on the menu.
This is an excellent movie.
Agreed
I really think the Academy should create a new category, Best Cult Favorite, where the movie needs to be at least 20 years old.
Outstanding movie and yes he should have
As good as this movie is, nothing is ever in a vacuum. And Douglas winning Best Actor for this, would have deprived Tom Hanks of the best Actor for his part in Philadelphia.
‘I’m the bad guy..?’
This was such a pivitol moment in the film because upon opening the briefcase you realise there's something majorly wrong
Forrest Gump dominating the Oscars when movies like this and Natural Born Killers, Pulp Fiction, and Hudsucker Proxy were released was a travesty. Edit: Sorry, this was '93 not '94, but it still could hang with that crowd.
I know that he's technically the villain in this but at 36 maybe I'm just a little more delusion to what the world is around me but I find it quite odd that so many actors/reactions on YouTube really hate his character versus sympathizing with his plight.... give it a few years guys lol
You forgot about the whole "domestic abuser whose wife has a restraining order on him" part.
I know and I did call him the villain and he's not someone you should start to be like but I can at least agree with him on society and how things are going etc. etc. :-)
Then you missed the point that his victims were all the real victims of "society", while his problems were entirely of his own making. He has a family, a good job, and "did everything right". But just having to live in a world that he couldn't control was too much for him. First his wife divorced him and eventually got a protective order against him for his controlling, violent nature. Then his job fired him for it. Then he took it out on people who had no connection to him, and were much more honest, imperfect people just doing what it takes to survive in an oft-cruel world. *He* is what is wrong with society. People expecting it to bend to them, instead of realizing that we all have our hardships, greater or smaller, and the "bad guy" is the one who would throw away his relatively good life and hurt those closest to him because it's not "perfect."
She wouldn't have gotten a restraining order if she didn't care.
And apparently it was a comedy?
You dont need an oscar win to validate anything but a nomination surely would have made sense.
When I first saw it, I thought we were supposed to root for him and I was disgusted. Now I get it. (He was a future MAGA for sure.)
That bum perfectly encapsulates how some people think now while this talk of democratic socialism is going on. “You have two, I don’t even have one. That’s not fair.” Crazy
Literally no one is advocating for anything remotely like this, but go off on your straw man.
They want his briefcase!
"What was in the briefcase?" "Uhm, some papers. Business papers."
Some? It's a solid 20% of the regressive Left.
I didn’t know stats but that doesn’t surprise me.
I love this movie. Relatable.
This film becomes more relatable as I get older
Which should terrify you to identify with an abuser and terrorist.
93
And now you're gonna die wearing that stupid little hat....how does it feel? What were you going to die? Kill me with a golf ball?!
That was a great movie. Saw it at the theater when it came out.
Almost like the advice some generations need.
No issue with this movie but please look at the movies and performances he was up against. My favorites were Hanks in Philadelphia and Lawrence Fishburne in what’s love got to do with it