Badmovies.org Forum

So from that racist films thread I saw Falling Down on there, then looked on IMDB and discovered it wasn't classified as a comedy :buggedout:!

Come on, it about a wormy guy who goes nuts! It's ridiculous!

Every time I watch it and see Douglas walking around, I think of the Proclaimers "I Would 500 Miles".

I think of it as a grim comedy with some serious elements.

It's a great movie!

I definitely thought it was a dark comedy.  Or a drama with a lot of dark comedy elements.

I loved how he went nuts in the restaurant with an uzi because the burger in the picture didn't look like the one you get.

I never saw the movie, but I saw that scene. Wasn't there also a scene where he shoots a golf cart and causes an old man to have a heart attack?

Oh yeah.. I forgot about that scene and just read about it now.  Michael Douglas' character walks onto a golf course and an old guy hits a ball in his direction.  Douglas shoots the cart, knocking it into the water.  The old guy has a heart attack and needs medication, which is on the cart.  Douglas just walks off.

I don't know about "comedy" 100%.  As Jack said, probably a dark comedy especially based around our society.  It find it is more of a thinking man's film.

What I love about this  movie is yeah, Douglas is the villain but is he without point?  He calls out big food chains for false advertising, rude old men on golf courses, contruction crews trying to justify their overinflated budgets, young hoodlums, etc.  He is very much an urban vigilante like Charles Bronson in Death Wish. Yet he seems to be a loving father to his daughter and extremely intelligent.   In other words, it questions the notion "is taking the law into your own hands better than the established method".  I've always enjoyed a film that pushes the envelope of gray areas of philosopical thought like that.   As D-fens questions at the end, "I'm the bad guy".  

I should point out Robert Duvall's character is an interesting contrast to Douglas's as well.  Here is a guy who has seen many hardships in his life yet he still follows society's norms when it comes to law enforcement.  In other words, he could have become D-fens but knew he had to draw the line.  

Awesome film, saw it in the theater I'm proud to say.  

I love Falling Down, and I believe the D-Fens role to be the best of Michael Douglas's career. Actually he was probably more deserving of an academy award for that film, than for his 3 or 4 bits of dialogue as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. I don't see Falling Down as a comedy, but it does make me laugh quite a bit in certain scenes. I think it's due to the intensity of each situation and the extremes his character can be pushed to by people from all walks of life. I find I can relate to Falling Down a bit too much, which is probably very unhealthy...

Oh, and it's not a racist "film" either. Just a film that contains a "character" with racist views, which unfortunately some people still hold in the real world.

I don't think it's racist. The only racist character was the Nazi military store guy.

Exactly.

I've always thought it was a semi-comedy. It just has too many funny moments, like him running after the gang-banger screaming "You forgot the briefcase!" Not a great film, but I've always enjoyed watching it.

The film does have a message. The message is that vigilante justice is not okay in a free society, no matter how f***ed up you think society is. Also, it also makes a pretty strong statement that vigilantes tend to be a bit unbalanced.

No, it's just a bad movie.

How appropriate then that it should be discussed on "Badmovies.org."  :wink:

I never thought of it that way, but I could see it as some sort of dark comedy.

Nein :tongueout:

I'd call it a drama with a lot of dark comedy elements.

One thing I have to say is I'm not sure what the point of the movie is.  I think I'd have liked it better if D-Fens had been a mild-mannered, completely ordinary guy.  Not someone who is shown to be a ticking time bomb with obvious anger issues.  It might have had a little more to say if our, at times, incredibly frustrating society drove a NORMAL person over the edge.

I never really thought of it as a comedy.It had some funny parts in it though. Makes me wonder what I'll do when I finally snap.

The point of the movie was clear, or at least I thought so. The message was that no matter how f***ed you think society is, you still don't have the right to administer your own brand of justice. This point is made clear at the end of the movie by Duvall's character. Whether you agree with that or not, or whether or not you like the film is a different matter, but that was the message.

I got that was what the movie may have been after, I just found it muddled considering how sympathetic D-Fens is and how late in the game anything he does is actually portrayed as out-and-out wrong.  Duvall himself doesn't even really say anything about it til literally the last 5 minutes of the film.

On another note, anyone seen Bruiser?  Vaguely reminds me of this one. 

Aha. Exactly why that is the message. The movie makes a lot of viewers vicariously appreciate D-Fens because they share his feelings about what he is lashing out against. Then they hit you with the moral of the story at the end, with what I believe is the intention of telling the viewer that you may share his frustrations, but it's still not okay. Very manipulative, actually. That's my take. That's not to say that I'm necessarily right.

yeah, I saw Bruiser a few years ago. I thought it was a pretty good Romero movie,even without zombies

Ya see, that's part of the reason I think it would have been better if D-Fens hadn't been portrayed as a ticking time bomb.  If he'd just been an ordinary citizen who really couldn't stand it anymore, and the audience sided with him, that type of moral would have worked a lot better.

Oh, you may have a point. I'm just going with what I think the film was trying to say. As is, it has the message about vigilanteism, but also, because the central character is a ticking time bomb, carries the additional message that vigilantes tend to be unbalanced people. Again, that's may take on the film's message. Further, the viewer doesn't know that D-Fens is a ticking timebomb until that is developed. At the beginning, he simply appears to be a man who can't take it anymore.

Falling Down was not a great film. It was okay. I did enjoy it and it has some good elements. What makes it work or how the message of the film could have been better is going to, most of the time, come down to personal preferences and beliefs. We seem to differ on that, but only slightly from what I can see.

Ah well. Cheers.  :cheers: