DVD Review: Falling Down (1993) -- Deluxe Edition

Now Available on DVD & Blu-ray as a
Remastered Deluxe Edition
With a New Commentary & Interview



Previously Available Edition

Bookmark this on Delicious

Print Page





In Fatal Attraction (also recently released on Blu-ray), Glenn Close's scorned one-night-stand warns Michael Douglas that she "is not going to be ignored.” Tired of being ignored himself in a world where as his Wall Street character Gordon Gecko proclaimed, “greed is good"-- a few years following the premieres of those '80s classics-- Douglas' character snaps in gridlock L.A. traffic on the hottest day of the year near the beginning of Joel Schumacher's psychological exploration of an urban nightmare.

Despite the 8 & ½ like opener and weather fueled short tempers a la Spike Lee's masterpiece Do the Right Thing-- Falling Down is incredibly straightforward from the start as a work of action driven suspense rather than a highbrow work of art.

The timeline plays out over the course of a deceptively sunny day that is in stark contrast to the tone of the piece which seems as though it's filled with as many ominous dangers as a long, dark night.



And in it, Douglas' angry, laid off former governmental cold war era defense employee does all the wrong things, changing from his tendency to implode everything--shoving it beneath the surface-- until he explodes all over the city in a series of escalating violent encounters and devastating acts.

The film Douglas notes in an all new interview would most likely have been made independently today. For by the time it was finally released in '93, Ebbe Roe Smith's screenplay (that later garnered him an Edgar Allen Poe award) had been circulating from studio to studio for years as each one passed on the piece.



However, the work found and an avid supporter in the continuously risk-taking Michael Douglas who consistently stands behind projects in which he wholeheartedly believes which is something he's done since producing Milos Forman's Oscar winner One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest starring his good friend and frequent collaborator Danny DeVito.

And in fact it was his commitment to the unique material in tandem with director Joel Schumacher's clear-cut vision as well as costar Robert Duvall who plays the ideal counterpoint to the madness as a good-natured, ready to retire police officer who pieces together the movements of Douglas that makes the film so successful. And still Douglas marvels at the brave boldness of Warner Brothers Studios to see it through as all of the aforementioned collaborators crafted one of the most provocative films of the '90s and likewise offered further proof of Douglas' acting versatility and command of character.

Daring, controversial and still potent sixteen years later especially to this reviewer who hadn't seen it since its original release-- upon further research I was fascinated to see all of the numerous interpretations. To say that reception to the film itself varied is a gross understatement as Falling Down runs the gamut of responses, thereby proving that-- like all effective works-- the fact that it draws a passionate response always makes it a success at least on the most important level of jolting audiences out of passivity and into conversation.



And surely it was seriously discussed as some audience members erroneously viewed it as a celebration of violence and anarchy. Moreover, others fervently dismissed Falling Down as merely racist. This is especially the case since the well-dressed yet crew cut sporting and briefcase carrying main character-- known for a majority of the picture as his license plate D-FENS (both a nod to the man's former employer and an ironic statement on his actions which move from offense to defense and back again depending on how you look at it)-- is first set off in a scene by a Korean grocer before getting into an altercation with Latin American gang members.

However the most obvious interpretations of the piece likened the film to a modern amalgam of Robert De Niro's turn as the loose cannon or “certain breed of white boy” that Paul Schrader warned of in his script for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver as well an action-packed version of Peter Finch's “I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore” mantra in Network.

Yet to me and right in line with the other work of Schumacher (especially as he later revisited with the near Colin Farrell one-man-show underrated effort Phone Booth), Falling Down seems to be a satirically exaggerated cautionary tale of the way that all of the little things we experience can multiply until it's too late.

For, in the case of D-FENS who flips out in the opening moments of the piece when his automobile's air conditioning fails and a fly buzzes as in a poem of Emily Dickinson-- it's all these little things like being overcharged at convenience stores and missing out on the breakfast menu at a fast food joint by minutes-- which propel him onward on his delusional yet determined journey to the home of his estranged wife (Barbara Hershey) and daughter.

And while it's not a journey we'll want to take very often as it's a painful yet poignant portrait of a heart heading directly into darkness, it's nonetheless a passionate piece as we chronicle one man's (possibly culturally symbolic?) loss of sanity to the point of literally falling down in the memorable finale wherein the "London Bridges" references that run throughout finally pay off.

Despite my admiration for the work which I was startled to realize how much of it I recalled verbatim as it was so shocking that it seared into my young mind in '93, I must admit that it's still incredibly hard to watch the disturbingly funny yet shockingly in-your-face film now in 2009. And the reason for this is simple as unfortunately the events in the film aren't that far-fetched today since we're bombarded much too often with horrific news reports of (usually) a nondescript man like D-FENS who snaps either at work, at home, or at a public place and kills everyone in sight including himself.



Of course, at the same time-- while it's especially hard given this state of affairs to view it objectively-- the fact that Schumacher, screenwriter Smith, Douglas and all involved had the foresight to try and address our increasingly hostile society sixteen years ago makes Falling Down even more significant and similarly much less exploitative in retrospect.

Remastered to a sharper clarity for this deluxe edition release-- while I can't rate the Blu-ray technical aspects or what sounded like a truly incredible booklet that comes with the disc which lets you behind the scenes, offers a discussion of the movie and examines D-FENS to greater extent, this DVD will still be of particular interest.



Nicely tying in with this year's AFI Lifetime Achievement Award for Douglas, Falling Down's DVD benefits from the inclusion of a Schumacher and Douglas commentary track and a modern in-depth discussion by Douglas as he deconstructs D-FENS and articulates his take on the character, film, and his passionate wish that it would provoke discussion among those who saw it. I think it's safe to say that that goal was more than achieved since, much like Close noted in Fatal Attraction, Falling Down may do a lot of things but it will definitely not "be ignored."

Batman: Gotham Knight

Directors:
Yasuhiro Aoki,
Futoshi Higashide,
Toshiyuki Kubooka,
Hiroshi Morioka, & Shoujirou Nishini

“I never seen him before, but I’m like I so know who this is,” a teenage skateboarder proclaims in Have I Got a Story For You, which serves as the first entry of the impressively animated if uneven six part anthological comic book come to cinematic life in the new DVD release Batman: Gotham Knight. Of course, the caped crusader to whom the teens are referring is none other than Batman and in a series of escalating stories, the group tries to outdo one another as a sort of fanboy version of a “your mama” joke. While it's admittedly a rather weak way to open the episodic work, from a narrative perspective, it makes perfect sense to ensure the audience’s thirst for good old fashioned storytelling by listening to several tall tales in preparation for the film’s far superior yarns to come. And indeed, much like a perfect mix CD made by a friend who knows your musical taste well, the six talented Japanese anime experienced filmmakers responsible for Gotham Knight know how to excite viewers as the film climbs steadily, building upon itself to become worthy of the formidably high bar that Batman enthusiasts have set for any entry in the series.

Broken into a half dozen distinctive chapters, each of the tales in Gotham Knight was created by an entirely different director and screenwriter. Now while in traditional live action form this may be distracting (and some critics referenced the failure of Four Rooms in their Gotham reviews) and it's also been pretentious (such as in the overly long Paris je t’aime), this technique can also provide a unique visual take to differentiate the chapters and better serve the story, such as Kieslowski employing a different cinematographer for each individual segment of his brilliant Three Colors Trilogy. Granted it’s not in the same league as Kieslowski nor should one compare apples to oranges-- or more precisely an anime take on a comic book with some of the best foreign films of the 1990’s-- but the bottom line is, it works in the exact same way in avoiding getting viewers lost in the shuffle of too much stimuli by switching up the visuals, not just for novelty or to pander to the ADD attention spans most filmmakers assume those of us reared on MTV, video games and Choose Your Own Adventure books have, but to better the experience considerably.

And although the mission may have been to segue from Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins into the hotly anticipated sequel The Dark Knight or-- at its most cynical-- another excuse to get more bat bang for the box office buck, Gotham Knight offers several fascinating looks at the comic book’s mythology including various points-of-view when it comes to the existential hero himself. In addition it references not only Nolan’s works but also the films from the other directors including the horribly campy Schumacher offerings, Burton’s masterworks, the comic book itself as well as the deliciously cheesy television series and original film from 1966.

Upping the action considerably from Story, the film moves into Sin City like territory with the dark and breathtakingly animated Crossfire. In this short, we’re given a cop’s-eye-view of Gotham City and just what moral and ethical quandaries go along with having a vigilante like Bruce Wayne’s Batman basically jeopardizing their job security, with some officers led by Lt. Gordon who are in favor of his unorthodox and not exactly legal crime fighting and others who seem more annoyed by the caped one than the average Joe is of telemarketers. Above all, we’re constantly reminded of Bruce Wayne’s code of honor and the fact that-- while he’s arguably one of the darkest comic book characters ever created-- he doesn’t kill anyone and is always willing to put his own life on the line but will never ask anyone else to do the same for him.

Of course, Batman wouldn’t be able to whip out the “kapow” and “splat” without throwing some villains into the film and we’re given some genuinely exciting confrontations with Scarecrow (whom viewers recall from Nolan's Batman Begins) in the short chapter In Darkness Dwells and a humdinger of an introduction to Deadshot in Deadshot. In fact just these two shorts put together more than make up for some of the ridiculous villains and storylines introduced in the late 90’s Schumacher sequels wherein the franchise hit an all-time low with nipples on the batsuit, a wasted Jim Carrey, and trying to cram in an obligatory pop song every twenty minutes to sell Bat-soundtracks.

However, and thankfully never wearing out its welcome in its seventy-five minute running time, the film’s true standout comes in the form of director Toshiyuki Kubooka’s Working Through Pain which was penned by screenwriter Brian Azzarello. In Pain, we find Bruce Wayne heading east where he enlists the mentorship of a bright Indian woman named Cassandra to help teach him how to control his body’s responses and deal with the excruciating pain in which he often finds himself. Instead of just rehashing the tried and true Mr. Miyagi inspired Karate Kid clichéd plot, the filmmakers dig deeper to make Cassandra the most fascinating supporting player in the film that isn’t a regular part of the mythology as we learn that in order to acquire her knowledge she had to hide the fact that she was a woman, only to be accused of witchcraft when her gender was inevitably discovered.

It’s these little touches in the storytelling along with awe-inspiring artwork that separate the film from simply being labeled a clever marketing tool. And by giving audiences a chance to go from one episode to the next, similar to waiting for the next installment in a comic book series, we’re given a richer look at the man in black than perhaps what would’ve been shared if we’d only been offered one single narrative to sum up the endlessly complicated bat.