Falling Down

I watched this film tonight. I have seen it before and must have liked it so much that I wanted to own my own copy, as I watched a DVD of it. It works on a number of levels but is quite a simple film. A man steps out of a car stuck in a traffic jam and decides to walk home leaving his car in the jam. Sounds simple doesn't it? Well, it ain't quite as simple as that. He tries to phone home from a public payphone after stepping off the main road into a back street but he doesn't have the change so he goes into a general store. The main character, known only as D Fens, is played by Michael Douglas in one of his best roles I think. He wears a white short sleeved shirt and tie, with a pair of black spectacles. He has a pen in his shirt pocket so we can imagine he is a technician or scientist of some kind. It seems he works for the military in some capacity.
The film is based on his journey home and the characters he meets on the way. There is another character who plays an important role in the film, a retiring cop who has a desk job and is looked down on by his superior.
There are some great moments in the film, like when a gang in a car attempt to kill D Fens in a drive by shooting and end up shooting pedestrians instead then crash their car. D Fens walks over to the car where one of the gang is hanging out of the car and the others are unconscious and bloodied. He picks up the sub-machine gun and shoots the guy hanging out in the calf, smiles and walks away saying something like "That's the concept, get it right next time". There's another death later, this time on a golf course where some rich guy (in all the usual silly golf clothes including tartan bobble hat) gets so annoyed with D Fens walking on his golf course that he tries to hit him with a golf ball. D Fens brings out a pump action shot gun he stole from the gang in the car and the rich man has a heart attack. As he watches the man gasping for air D Fens says "Now you're gonna die wearing that stupid little hat. How does it feel?" Classic!
Most of the victims, although seemingly obnoxious at first, are not evil. However, there's a guy who owns an army surplus store who is just a nasty fascist. I was on D Fens' side when that guy got what was coming.
As I said earlier, this film works on many different levels and is one of my favourites.

D Fens inside a burger chain restaurant