After watching an episode of Obsession on A&E I have this urge to go back to bed and try to start this day all over again. Last night watched the Michael Douglas 1993 movie Falling Down directed by Joel Schumacher.
This is not my first time seeing this film. I first saw the movie at the theatre and was moved by the films sentiment. My memory of the movie however was a little skewed I thought of the Michael Douglas character D-fens being more of a victim who out of circumstances afflicted on him explodes in revenge. Much like Charles Bronson in the Death Wish movies.
With fresh eye’s this movie is less a story of a vigilante and more about the loss of ones mental reasoning.
The desperation of someone refusing to face their personal failures and playing God. The title of the movie was
derived from the nursery rhyme “London bridge is falling down” which is used several times in the film.
Robert Duvall does a fantastic job of playing Sergeant Pendergast who at his wife’s insistence is retiring from the LAPD. The movie was turned down by every major Hollywood studio until Michael Douglas read the script and declared it was one of the best he’d ever read. I highly recommend this film. It’s hard to believe how timely it is. (Filmed during the LA Riots.) Scary like the similarities of movie Wag The Dog and the parallels to the proceeding Gulf Wars. This movie examines what it feels like to be “not economically viable.”
A movie that today unfortunately rings just as disturbingly true as it did 17 years ago.
It may even like myself force you to go reclaim sleep and try to wake up on the right side of the bed.
Tom McNeil
Movie Addict
