Falling Down

A TALE OF URBAN REALITY. In 1993, director Joel Schumacher (Flatliners) delivered one of the most provocative studio thrillers of the decade with Falling Down, a darkly comic, razor-sharp portrait of modern urban frustration starring Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall at their very best. On a sweltering Los Angeles morning, a man known only as "D-Fens" (Douglas) abandons his car in a gridlocked traffic jam and sets off across the city on foot. He just wants to go home, but his path is marred by increasing everyday irritations that escalate into explosive confrontations, leaving a trail of violence in his wake. Trying to piece together these events is veteran cop Prendergast (Duvall), whose quiet final day before retirement becomes a chaotic hunt for a dangerous man on the edge. As the paths of these two very different men converge, the question of whether D-Fens is a victim of an oppressive society, or a man showing his true colors becomes unavoidable. Shocking, darkly funny, and eerily prescient, Falling Down remains one of the most unforgettable portraits of rage in modern American cinema.