FALLING DOWN, at first glance, would fall squarely into the tradition of DEATH WISH movies, where a man outraged by the liberal wussies takes justice into their own hands. But while Schumacher and writer Ebbe Roe Smith do go over-the-top in a few cases, they're making a more complicated movie than that.
The outcast in question here, for most of the movie, is known as D-Fens (Michael Douglas), though his real name is William Foster. Foster is stuck in traffic in L.A. one very hot afternoon when suddenly, something snaps inside him, and he decides to get out of his car and walk to the house of his estranged wife Beth (Barbara Hershey) to celebrate his daughter Adele's (Joey Hope Singer) birthday. But he will go through a lot to get there. He goes to a Korean grocery to get change; when the grocer (Michael Paul Chan) refuses, and charges what Foster thinks is too much for a drink, Foster trashes the place with a baseball bat. Later, he scares off a Latino gang with the bat. He manages to get their bag of guns as well, which comes in handy when he goes to a fast food place which refuses to serve him breakfast; he responds by shooting up the place (though not the people). When the Latino gang comes after him later, he shoots their car up. He also shoots up a construction site. But it's when he encounters a neo-Nazi store owner (Frederic Forrest) that he really goes over the edge.
Tracking Foster's movements is Detective Prendergast (Robert Duvall). Like Foster, all Prendergast wants to do is get home to his wife, named Amanda (Tuesday Weld). It's his last day at work before he retires, and his wife has been increasingly needy ever since their baby died of crib death (Amanda also thinks Prendergast has been cheating on her with his partner Sandra (Rachel Ticotin)). Like Foster, a defense worker who was laid off, Prendergast is seen as out of it - his own boss, Captain Yardley (Raymond J. Barry), doesn't like Prendergrast because he doesn't swear. But Prendergast still has a dogged mind, and he's able to track Foster down.
