FALLING DOWN opens with a scene of a nightmarish L.A. traffic jam in which drivers are driven to distraction by boredom, frustration, noise and heat. If you manage to sit through this film, you will know just how they feel.
Stuck in that jam is a disgruntled defense worker (Michael Douglas) suffering the combined pressures of unemployment, divorce, and a haircut someone must have given him as an April Fool's joke. As the tension is ham-fistedly turned up, it becomes clear that something is very wrong. A bead of
sweat runs down Douglas's face; a fly lands on his neck; perhaps, off-camera, someone makes a joke about his buttock-baring scene in BASIC INSTINCT.
That does it! Douglas is off, abandoning his car for a cross-town hike across L.A.'s seediest neighborhoods, en route to a showdown with his ex-wife (Barbara Hershey) and child. Along the way, he has a series of encounters that tread an uncomfortable line between black comedy and clumsy social
criticism. He trashes a Korean grocery store because the prices are too high; provokes a drive-by gang shooting in which several innocent people die; and laughs as he gives a rich white golfer a fatal heart attack.
These adventures would be offensive if you could take them seriously, so it's probably good that you can't. Despite a nicely understated performance from Robert Duvall as a cop on Douglas's trail, FALLING DOWN fails to convince on any level.
