Movies Falling Down(1993 movie) theory

[TrueBias]

Strange, I’ve never seen any extra deleted scenes but damn it sure seems like I rembered that one in the movie.

Fukin’ Mandela and shit man

Wait a sec....he left his car in traffic. How could he get a parking violation when he already ditched the car?

He walked all the way back to it?

 

[Big Brain]

 

[90 50]

Wait a sec....he left his car in traffic. How could he get a parking violation when he already ditched the car?

He walked all the way back to it?

Before he ditched the car?

It’s been over 20 years maybe over 30 since I’ve seen that movie

 

[Mike]

I'd say normally he's good enough not to spoil the films, stuff like Black Rain or The Game I enjoy a good bit but he does end up a little bland in those kinds of thriller roles compared to say Mickey Rouke or Nick Cage.

I'd say he's good within his range, it's just usually a narrow range. Not very expressive. He's good at playing generic businessman.

 

[Headkicktoleg]

It would've been a short and shit film. Guy needs change, guy gets change, the end

But imagine the subtext!

 

[Magooglie]

He goes to make the call. The payphone eats all his quarters and he becomes angry.

 

[Zyklon R]

I cant remember the specifics of it but I know he was on his way over to her birthday party which was why he had that snowglobe thing and thats why he was extra pissed at Nazi guy cuz he smashed it.
But yes shit would not stop going wrong that day.

It was the Nazi guy breaking the snow globe that set him off, that's why he killed him and went nuts from there (changed outfit etc.).

 

[Deleted member 159002]

Robert Duvall is great in that flick.

 

[evergreenrider]

Wait a sec....he left his car in traffic. How could he get a parking violation when he already ditched the car?

He walked all the way back to it?

Yeah, I'm calling bullshit. I dont think the poster is lying, but definitely mis remembering

 

[Rhood]

I heard a Mandela Effect theory that Tom Arnold was actually the lead in Falling Down.

Tom Arnold was in Jingle All the Way
Mandela said so

 

[scorpipede]

Falling Down is my favorite movie ever made. I confirmed that over the weekend by rewatching the movie again. I really love everything about it.

I noticed a few things on this rewatch that I never paid attention to before. First of all when D-Fens leaves his car in the beginning of the movie he goes straight for the pay phone to call his ex wife. But he doesn't have any change for the phone. He goes into the convenient store to break a dollar.

I never noticed it before but as soon as he walks into the store they show the clerk with the cash register open and he's cracking open a fresh roll of quarters. The clerk refuses to give him change unless he buys something. This sends D-Fens off the fucking deep end and the whole movie takes off from there.

What if ole Korean cash register guy just gave D-Fens 4 quarters for his dollar real quick while he had his drawer open? The whole movie would have never taken place right? Maybe he calls his wife and just says fuck it and goes back to his car to go about his business for the day? Or no?

Either way yeah I want to talk about this movie and the way the D-Fens character loses it. It's pretty deep yeah?

Not much of a theory. Fucking fantastic movie though. I bought a digital copy of it a week or so ago and forgot all about it. Definitely a top 15 movie for me.

 

[scorpipede]

His dive over the edge was really a gradual one, it was just one thing led to another. It started with the Korean guy not giving him change, then it was the gang members trying to take his brief case, then it's the homeless guy. Then the gang does the drive by that shoots up everyone around him. He has a chance to kill the guy after they crash but he chooses to shoot him in the leg instead.

What really makes him snap was the protester outside the bank, "Not economically viable" and then the nazi fucker in the army surplus store. When he kills that guy is when he really starts to lose it and drifts off into the mouth of madness.

There was something symbolic about him seeing the little girls just gazing at him? Any theories about what that meant? At the start he's going crazy in traffic and the little girl is just staring him down non-stop from the car in front of him. Then when he's fixing his shoe with the newspaper I believe there is another little girl who looks the same that is just standing there watching him from a fenced in yard. And it's like both instances really deeply bother him or effect him in some way.

They remind him of his daughter that he can't see. That's what I thought anyway.

 

[scorpipede]

I haven’t seen it in forever, but isnt his wife(ex wife) not letting him see his daughter and she was going to let him that day but he was going through hell trying to make it happen and he fucking losses it??

It was like he had all these problems and all the little shit just kept escalating and driving him further off the deep end?

No he specifically wasn't allowed to visit I thought. But he was going nonetheless.

 

[scorpipede]

I don't think that's drifting necessarily. I think it's meant to show there's always an undercurrent of completely surreal lunacy in even the most mundane environments, if you happen to walk down the wrong street or enter the wrong building. It's meant to build on the toppling dominoes effect throughout the movie. One slightly improbable event leading into another until your entire life just unravels in the course of a single day.

Our pov character is a little unhinged but he isnt the source of the chaos in the movie. He's merely drowned in it, consumed by it until gives up and allows himself to be carried away by the current. One of the better portrayals of what it's like to be a mentally unstable person trying to function in a chaotic and unsupportive community. It's all very understated and a lot of things are only shown and implied, never stated.

When this guy posts y'all muhfuckas should listen.

 

[Winter-John]

But imagine the subtext!

Ever notice how Spongebob dresses exactly the same as him?

 

[TrueBias]

Before he ditched the car?

It’s been over 20 years maybe over 30 since I’ve seen that movie

Yeah! He flips out over a fly, then leaves it.

"Hey, where you going????
Going home "

 

[machidafan99]

Falling Down is my favorite movie ever made. I confirmed that over the weekend by rewatching the movie again. I really love everything about it.

I noticed a few things on this rewatch that I never paid attention to before. First of all when D-Fens leaves his car in the beginning of the movie he goes straight for the pay phone to call his ex wife. But he doesn't have any change for the phone. He goes into the convenient store to break a dollar.

I never noticed it before but as soon as he walks into the store they show the clerk with the cash register open and he's cracking open a fresh roll of quarters. The clerk refuses to give him change unless he buys something. This sends D-Fens off the fucking deep end and the whole movie takes off from there.

What if ole Korean cash register guy just gave D-Fens 4 quarters for his dollar real quick while he had his drawer open? The whole movie would have never taken place right? Maybe he calls his wife and just says fuck it and goes back to his car to go about his business for the day? Or no?

Either way yeah I want to talk about this movie and the way the D-Fens character loses it. It's pretty deep yeah?

Any small slight could have triggered him and would have.
Pretty good acting in that one.

 

[90 50]

No he specifically wasn't allowed to visit I thought. But he was going nonetheless.

thats what I was thinking. Now I’m thinking I’m rember it him telling the ex wife “but it’s her birthday “ or something?

 

[shinobimusashi]

Any small slight could have triggered him and would have.
Pretty good acting in that one.

At first his violence was all defensive, at the store he refused to leave so the guy grabbed his baseball bat, D-Fens grabbed the bat from him before he could use it. Then the gangsters pulled the knife on him and he overtook them with the bat. It's like he just kept upgrading his weapons on his journey, from the bat to the knife to the bag of fully automatic weapons. It seems like the bag of guns really had an effect on him and played a major part in pushing him over the edge at the end(I believe Pendergrast was right he was going to kill his family and then himself).

Another pivotal point of the story similar to the Korean refusing to break the dollar(even though he had a shit load of quarters and the cash register was open) was the exchange with the homeless guy. Something I never paid much attention to before was that D-Fens thought for a minute about which bag to leave behind, like he almost thought about leaving the bag of guns behind for a split second, and if he would have it would have changed the whole course of his day. Instead he gives the guy his brief case with his lunch in it.

 

[machidafan99]

At first his violence was all defensive, at the store he refused to leave so the guy grabbed his baseball bat, D-Fens grabbed the bat from him before he could use it. Then the gangsters pulled the knife on him and he overtook them with the bat. It's like he just kept upgrading his weapons on his journey, from the bat to the knife to the bag of fully automatic weapons. It seems like the bag of guns really had an effect on him and played a major part in pushing him over the edge at the end(I believe Pendergrast was right he was going to kill his family and then himself).

Another pivotal point of the story similar to the Korean refusing to break the dollar(even though he had a shit load of quarters and the cash register was open) was the exchange with the homeless guy. Something I never paid much attention to before was that D-Fens thought for a minute about which bag to leave behind, like he almost thought about leaving the bag of guns behind for a split second, and if he would have it would have changed the whole course of his day. Instead he gives the guy his brief case with his lunch in it.

But you can see that his life was bunch of accumulated indignities and the cumulative effects of which where in place and about to burst.