This is an interesting film because it weirdly got repurposed by the alt-right as with D-Fens as a hero, which is just mental. Like Fight Club though, I always loved it, but I never saw it as a right wing film. I mean, even as a kid I knew that he was a lunatic. But also that he kind of had a point how just day to day you often want to just be really violent because so many people are shitty and rude. I’ve never been to the USA, but I can imagine that in LA it really is turned up to 11 because everything seems to be over there. The UK is this kind of Little America, but we are also a European country and their dominant white culture does seem to be this weird cartoon version of Europe from abroad.
I have seen it a load of times but I have not rewatched it for a long time and this time I have a few observations.
First of all, the reason that it works is because it’s funny. It’s not my original thought but it always bears repeating that all of the best movies and novels are funny. The funniest stuff is really deep and does just point out the absurdity of life. The USA is still hyper capitalist and although in the film it’s the richest country in the world whereas it seems to be much poorer now for civilians, there is still this continuation where they are kind of pretending everything is great even though it isn’t.
The go to reference for me is in the film Downfall when the Russians and Allies are actually at Berlin and there are shells landing in the city, but the upper crust are still waltzing to Strauss and pretending that they aren’t all facing imminent doom.
Because this film is so analysed I will try to avoid the cliches. But the big joke that I haven’t seen in the analysis is how he has this mantra which always triggers him that ‘The customer is always right’. I guess that is why the alt-right like him, because he’s an entitled prick.
Like he does have a point in all of the situations. Everyone is just being shitty to him and he’s just some square guy trying to walk across LA who is in a bit of a bad way but is trying to rely on common decency because he’s down on his luck. It actually gets into that unfashionable liberal thing of ‘micro aggressions’ how everyone is just being low key horrible to him because he’s a bit down.
Of course you don’t because it is counter productive, but even as a middle aged pretty chilled adult, I do still have those fantasies of just smashing up a shop because they were rude to me for the sake of it, or murdering a Chicano gang because they tried to steal my briefcase. The first one more than the second to be honest.
It’s also good because the film has two stars, Robert Duvall who it’s weird how he plays a dweeby guy is the detective trying to catch D-Fens, he’s in a similar situation, he’s retiring from the police, Michael Douglas was made redundant, they both did what they thought they were meant to and got humble middle class jobs, and everyone seems to think that they are idiots because they aren’t doing some fake bullshit which may or may not be making them rich or getting them into horrific debt.
You can kind of infer that Michael Douglas character was laid off because he was scaring people at work since the backstory we get about him his life had been falling apart for a while. He was living with his mum and his wife wouldn’t see him but he had been doing stalker stuff for a while.
So I may write some more on this, I reccomend the film. I won’t go through the whole plot, to be honest I’m sober and don’t have it in me to write a long rambling post. I have one more point, also not original, but important to me.
I think that like Fight Club, it’s depressing how people like the antihero since he’s just obviously an idiot, but in both films they kind of mess up the landing by turning the character evil at the end and kind of excusing the world. In Falling Down, the Robert Duvall character who is put upon and treated badly does end up losing his rag with everyone, he is bullied by his wife, his boss, and this idiot. He stands up to his wife, punches the idiot guy, and tells his boss to fuck off (his boss calls him weak because he never curses, he cusses him out on television after he shoots D-Fens). There is something to that, like he does actually ‘man up’ and shows that he is capable, but he doesn’t just take it out on random annoying people and create chaos.
But it doesn’t address the Michael Douglas guy who doesn’t have any mates or an outlet. He is the problem, but he is a problem that could have been averted with a bit more help available, and that’s still a thing to this day. You could probably say it’s 100 times worse since you see young people now and they aren’t even pretentious how I was when I was young, they are just so jaded on the whole thing. Although of course everyone 45 ever probably said that.
It’s a very enjoyable film, the acting is great, the set pieces are great, it’s very atmospheric and because it’s now 30 years old it’s interesting how weird everything looks. As I said, like with all great stuff that lasts, it’s funny, I’d love to see The Coen Brothers do something like this, it also like all great stuff has all of these weird sub plots how there are lots of other things going on that aren’t part of the film. Even the minor characters, you’d love to know their deal.
Overall highly reccomended. An action packed non-stop thrill ride 5/5
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