Film Review: Falling Down (1993)

A gauge for the elasticity of patience in a man who's having a terrible day. A series of events at the wrong place and time send him spiralling down a vengeful trek through the city.

How long does it take to make a person completely snap? How many misfortunes does it take? What will they do once that perilous equilibrium of sanity breaks? It depends on what sort of person they really are. Each freak has their own jewel they they’re trying to get to, this one just wants to get home.

This is my bad day movie, I’m the sort of person that doesn’t let the world get on his nerves often but when my nerves get stepped on a fair few times through the day, the blood begins to boil and a harsh ignominious hatred against the world and what it stands for begins. Falling Down (1993) is one of those movies where the idiocy of society is pointed out by a mad-man and despite his truly questionable decisions, you can’t help but agree with him and despise the world that’s done this to him. Finding himself in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam, he loses his cool and one of the most iconic sequence of cinematic tension ensues as the camera and soundtrack build up to an oscillating crescendo of frustration. Turning himself loose in the world and just wanting to get home to his wife and child, on his way back he comes face to face with the greed, hypocrisy, degeneracy and capitalism that is on every street corner in America, each interaction striking his heart with more hatred, leaving him in a totally deranged state by the time he gets home (or was he as deranged to begin with in the first place? Most probably) Meanwhile a sergeant, on his very last day before retirement, who has his own plate full of problems, namely a hysterical wife, is tracking this guy down.

As the film progresses, you realise that this guy is actually the bad guy, but a bad guy with a point. When the rest of the world is a truly perfidious place, it’s easy to blend into the crowd where little crimes just slip by unnoticed.

Cinematically speaking this film is dynamic and never misses a beat to show his decent into fury, the camera wooshes in for uncomfortable close-ups and swings around awkwardly showing each pore of his skin pouring sweat, anxiously the camera follows him, anticipant of what he’ll do next. Throughout the film there are subliminal signs in the form of posters, billboards and messages as if the world is encouraging him to follow this rampaging rope of emancipation, the film seems to be shot with virtually no set and out in the streets but the little details that the set-design team have filled the world with are truly fascinating and catch your eye immediately as you’re locked in with his state of mind.

You feel warm when watching the film, the colour balance is stifling and sweat-inducing, swallowing you with the hues of a terribly hot sunny LA day – but that’s maybe the sunshine.

The script is provocative and full of cynical yet honest observations on life that ring true even today. The scene where a kid teaches him how to use a rocket-launcher is hilarious and my favourite interactions he has with the creatures of the world.

The soundscape of the film is full of noise, a crashing cacophony of sounds that grate against the ear and build up this mounting wrath alongside the careening camera.

This guy is us, or rather this guy is us had we the capacity to enact our anger against the world when the wrong cards are dealt to us. The film plays on our identification with him and really immerses us in his state of mind as he falls down and apart, yet it almost acts as a cautionary tale encouraging us to keep it cool and not lose our top. Go watch it, its great!