|
Falling Down [Region 2] | ![Falling Down [Region 2]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ZS3Z5B15L._SL500_.jpg)
| Director: Joel Schumacher
Actors: Michael Douglas, Robert Duvall, Barbara Hershey, Tuesday Weld, Rachel Ticotin
Category: DVD
This item is no longer available
Rating:  181 reviews
Format: Anamorphic, Full Screen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Unknown), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), German (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Italian (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled), Dutch (Subtitled), Arabic (Subtitled), Romanian (Subtitled), Bulgarian (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 2
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Running Time: 113 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 7321950126484
ASIN: B00004VYM8
Theatrical Release Date: February 26, 1993
| |
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
This film, about a downsized engineer (Michael Douglas) who goes ballistic, triggered a media avalanche of stories about middle-class white rage when it was released in 1993. In fact, it's nothing more than a manipulative, violent melodrama about one geek's meltdown. Douglas, complete with pocket protector, nerd glasses, crewcut, and short-sleeved white shirt, gets stuck in traffic one day near downtown L.A. and proceeds to just walk away from his car--and then lose it emotionally. Everyone he encounters rubs him the wrong way--and a fine lot of stereotypes they are, from threatening ghetto punks to rude convenience store owners to a creepy white supremacist--and he reacts violently in every case. As he walks across L.A. (now there's a concept), cutting a bloody swath, he's being tracked by a cop on the verge of retirement (Robert Duvall). He also spends time on the phone with his frightened ex-wife (Barbara Hershey). Though Douglas and Duvall give stellar performances, they can't disguise the fact that, as usual, this is another film from director Joel Schumacher that is about surface and sensation, rather than actual substance. --Marshall Fine
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 176 more reviews...
 Michael Douglas' best performance! June 26, 2009
C. Bennett
What can you say about this film that hasn't already been said in previous reviews? Great film about a normal guy who snaps.
I'm not going to waste my time talking about the movie it's a must see. What I am here to talk about is the great Blu ray that Warner Brothers has put out.
Lets talk about the package first, it's not a typical plastic case but a hardcover book. It's about the same thickness as a BR case but a tad bigger. The pages vary in content from pre to post production. You also get some very nice full color pictures.
The Blu-ray disc; The transfer is great. I was really surprised when I put the movie in, very clear transfer with very little grain.
The sound is where things get a bit disappointing, only a 2.0 track is available. It still sounds good, but definitely could benefit from a 5.1 option.
The extras are meek, but this time around it's quality and not quantity. First of all you get two seperate commentaries with the director Schumacher and star Douglas. There's a 10 minute featurette called "A Discussion with Michael Douglas" where the actor recants on his experiences with making the film. Rounding out the disc is the theatrical trailer.
This disc comes highly recommended. Great step up from the previously released DVD!
 Falling Down Blu Ray June 26, 2009
Kevin Lloyd Coe
Falling Down (Blu-ray Book) [Blu-ray]
Falling Down looks better than ever on Blu Ray.
Excellence comes from an unlikely source June 19, 2009
Allen Smalling (Chicago, IL United States)
Twelve years before the Oscar-winning CRASH (2005) came this underappreciated vehicle about a Southern Californian who just had too much.
**SPOILERS** Michael Douglas, playing down the middle of what could have been a very unsympathetic role, portrays one of society's victims: an unemployed defense worker still with a short-sleeve, button-down shirt, crewcut, "nerd (pocket) pack" and old-fashioned briefcase. In short, a middle-aged white male heading for obsolescence -- until his day takes some very surprising turns. He first abandons his car on the freeway during an interminable delay but cannot walk directly home because of Metrorail construction. Taking a roundabout route, he crosses paths with multiple unsavory types, especially an obnoxious Asian grocery-store owner and two Latino gang members. He also needs regular access to a pay telephone (it would not have been in character for him to have a cell phone in 1993) as he tries to beg his ex-wife for a little face time with his little girl on her birthday.
**MORE SPOILERS**Shockingly, Douglas' character, while originally flummoxed by all this diversity, learns to meet these challenges but on the way becomes a full-fledged urban territorist.** (The similarity to CRASH is most apparent when violence pops up from almost nowhere.)
FALLING DOWN could easily have turned formulaic but happily, it transcends its material (Robert Duvall cast as a cop on his last day before retiring). As well as a good taut script, the movie achieves its excellence in no small part because of his supporting cast, not only the aforesaid Robert Duvall but also Tuesday Weld, Barbara Hershey, Rachel Ticotin, and Lois Smith.
Politics? Well, as in CRASH, there are very few verities in FALLING DOWN. I certainly do not consider it an endorsement of urban terrorism or a delve into ethnic stereotypes. It's a film well worth seeing, perhaps seeing a second time, and worth discussing. Top recommendation.
 Movie is great, but... June 10, 2009
Miguel Enriquez Barrantes (Costa Rica)
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
as I am reviewing the product I am giving only one star because Amazon has wrong information for this DVD; according with the product details this movie has spanish audio, however I bought it and audio and subtitles are only in english and french.
I can't understand why Amazon gives wrong information for users.
Joel Schumacher's and Michael Douglas' BEST FILM! May 30, 2009
David J. Brown
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Finally, a special edition of one of the few really innovative film to come out of a studio in the 90's! I didn't know about this film's existance until it hit cable in 1993, and I must've watched it over a dozen times back then. I'm very pleased to have a remastered special edition DVD, even if the special features are a bit sparse for my tastes.
Firstly, this is truly the most interesting character Michael Douglas has ever played. This performance is the acting version of surgery. It's so percise and delicate, that one wrong decision and the whole thing, the character, the story, the film's tone completely falls apart. Douglas plays Ben Foster, though throughout the majority of the film he is simply known as D-FENS(the letters on his personalized license plate). D-FENS is a recently laid off defense worker, end of the cold war hung a lot of the men in this profession out to dry(according to the DVD's loaded commentary track) and he just snaps one day in traffic. He decides he is going to see his ex-wife and child and he walks across L.A. to get to them. He walks around parts of L.A. rarely seen on film. Parts of the city that make up the majority of it, but are glossed or glorified in past films. On his way 'home' D-FENS runs into common annoyances that are part-and-parcel when existing in a crowded area like a city: gang members, angry Korean store owners, surly fast food clerks, and a red neck running an Army/Navy store. Oh, and he does something I know I've always dreamed about to a construction site. This film is rife with blackly humorous satirical jabs and outrage against what America has ultimately become what certain people like D-FENS feel about a changing society that is happy to leave them behind.
An audience member fed on a healthy diet of recent films coming to this movie cold will be shocked about the un-P.C. nature of the story. Filmed in 1992, I guess moviegoers were a lot less sensitive and could think more for themselves. This film would never get made today by a studio, NEVER. Douglas doesn't make excuses for his character's behavior in the film. There's no cheesy or false moments of realizations. He starts on a dark path and goes all the way through to the end without common movie conventions hindering the tone or reality of the story. That's why his performance is so brilliant. He plays a narrow minded dinosaur of a man, who acts out the worst possible aspects of a repressed outrage, but he manages to get some sympathy, and even some slight semblance of understanding from the audience. He acts out certain blue collar fantasies. He shows how awful they really are when being applied to reality, but never sugar coats it. He seems real in an unreal situation. The only contrived thing about the film is the aspect of how the Douglas character manages to make it across L.A. unnoticed and without being caught within what amounts to an 8 or 10 hour day.
Robert Duvall plays that age-old cinema convention of the about-to-retire cop who has elected to ride a desk job for the latter part of his career. The weird thing is,this film makes the cop convention seem fresh, in no small degree due to Duvall's very real and welcoming performance. It just proves that just because it's a cliche' doesn't mean it can't be original or entertaining. He has the same blue collar life as D-FENS but he chooses a different path. The movie alludes that his obsession with apprehending D-FENS comes from how much he relates to his plight. In the film's climax you can sense in Duvall's performance the he doesn't want the situation to end badly. It's a more subtle performance, but it's just as brilliant as Douglas'.
The DVD itself only has two special features, a commentary track and a new interview with Michael Douglas. I was bummed that there wasn't a retrospective doc concerning the film, but that was until I listend to the commentary track. The track has comments from director Joel Schumacher, the producers, Douglas, screenwriter Ebbe Roe Smith, and even Vonde Curtis Hall(who has about a minute of screen time in the film as the 'Not Economically Viable' protester outside a bank). This extra mile is why this commentary track goes above and beyond the usual and negates the necessity of a retrospective doc. The interview with Michael Douglas is really interesting. He gives details on how at the Falling Down point in his career he was in a slump, tired of playing reactive characters in such films as Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct. He also thinks back to the period and the changes the country was going through politically and socially. One of the main reasons this film even ended up studio produced was becaus Douglas(also a producer on the film) lobbied for it and its screenplay so hard. Not something many actors would do. A very interesting detail is in regard to how up until that point in his career he picked film projects more based on his producer's hat then his actor hat. He went for what would make the best movie and not necessarily the best character for him to play. Douglas is also on the commentary track and he doesn't repeat any of the info contained in the interview.
Joel Schumacher is a very interesting director. He has worked in almost every genre and succeded at most of them. Most may know and love him from his film The Lost Boys and others may know and hate him from Batman Forever And Batman and Robin. Please, fanboys, get over it. Batman and Robin happened over ten years ago. He's made many fine films since then(Tigerland, Phone Booth, Veronica Guerrin, Phantom of the Opera). The new Batman franchise is awesome, you got your Batman back to make love to, so please get off the guy's nuts already. If you actually think Batman And Robin is the worst film ever made then you don't watch many films, at least ones of substance. Schumacher has always been a filmmaker who directs in darkness(which is strange that they picked him to 'lighten up' the original Batman franchise) and that's why he was perfect for this film. He lets the narrative and satire play out without haveing scenes or characters come out to let the idiot audience know that 'this was bad' or 'you shouldn't do that'. He leaves the judgements to the audience. He also leaves the joys of D-FENS acting out. Of course, D-FENS enjoyment is cut short in the grand scheme of things.
After rewatching this film recently I was shocked at how much more relevant the subject matter is today. The film is about a man left behind in a changing country. He refuses to catch up and instead chooses to act out. Here we are in 2009, after the Obama election, and we still have some old white dinosaurs refusing to listen to the majority of the American public and continue to spout the same old-world/1950's empy rhetoric. It wouldn't surprise me if either Dick Cheney or Rush Limbaugh pulled a D-FENS on the freeway somewhere any day.
See this movie and listen to the commentary track immediately. A great film about choices made, good or bad.
|
|
|
Proud member of the Celebrity Pro Network. Make sure you check out these other great CelebrityPro network sites:
Lyrics Database
Celebrity Blog
Celebrity Thing
Celebrity PC
Latest Celebrity Photos
Portal
Travel Photos
Quotes
Flash Games
|
Is there a better
price available?
Find out:
|
|
|
|
