Film Trivia is back at 7pm on Thursday, March 27th with our classic brand of infotainment quiz show fun, followed up by a special screening of Joel Schumacher’s ironic take on righteousness and violence in America, Falling Down (1993). 

An ordinary man frustrated with the various flaws he sees in society begins to psychotically and violently lash out against them. 

Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down is one of the key Rorschach tests of Hollywood cinema. Starring Michael Douglas as the film’s nameless protagonist (referred only to by his license plate “D-FENS”), it features a very ‘90s update on the white, middle class revenge fantasies of such crypto-fascist ‘70s films as Joe (1970) and Death Wish (1974). Taking place on a single, scorching afternoon, we meet up with D-Fens as he’s already having a bad day in the middle of a bad life. Attempting to cross town to visit his estranged daughter, he abandons his car in the middle of traffic and sets on foot across Los Angeles where he goes through a Homeric adventure of middle class fears. Encountering Latino street gangs, neo-Nazis, the bureaucracy of chain restaurants, the disdain of the rich, Douglas embodies both the rational and the irrationality of late 20th century, post-industrial America. 

Written before, and coincidentally filmed during, the 1992 LA riots that occurred as a result of the Rodney King verdict, Falling Down immediately took on an unforeseen documentary quality in regard to race relations. Controversial to this day, opinions on the film and its lead character reflect the viewer far more than the intentions of the filmmakers. Depending on your socio-political outlook he’s either a decent guy who’s been pushed too far by society, or a bad guy doing bad things and blaming society for it. With America becoming a culture of grievance more so everyday it’s shocking how Falling Down and D-Fens could be both incredibly of their time but also astoundingly prescient about ours.