Analyzing Evil: William "D-FENS" Foster From Falling Down
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
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Hello everyone and welcome to the eighty-fourth episode of Analyzing Evil! Our feature villain for this video is William "D-Fens" Foster from Falling Down. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for watching. If you have any feedback or questions feel free to let me know below!
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#fallingdown #WilliamFoster #MichaelDouglas 
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"I'm the bad guy?" at the end of the movie is heartbreaking. Such a fantastic performance by Michael Douglas.
Yeah gets me ever time.
Indeed.
He was a hero.
Trump supporters when they realize they supported a nazi
He should have got an OSCAR for this Role....he's brilliant in it!!😍🤩
One of the most fascinating characters I’ve ever seen in any media. He simultaneously has down-to-earth frustrations, but takes out his anger about them in such an extreme way. The straw broke the camel’s back in his psyche.
Absolutely evil and 100% terrifying
@@pink_earthworm I'd say the real people who view the world the same as this man are the real terrors because they pretty much always take their violence and anger out on innocent people who have nothing to do with their shortcomings
@@LiShuBen Truth
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I think the film is more of a satire on the (then) current state of affairs of LA/America. I don’t even think will is a bad guy so much as a vehicle for the director to criticize from the POV of a relatively normal man.
i like how this character's gear levels up with every interaction he has, like a video game. He gets the bat from the shopkeeper, uses the bat to get the knife from the thugs, and so on
Ya boi is gearing up for the final boss
@Grim Reaper idk man, maybe the real final boss was the friends he made along the way?
@@invaderHUNK too bad that William didn't make any.
@@VonKrauzer nah he made a few: bat, uzi, and assorted firearms
Reminds me of GTA 4.
The scene where a kid on a bike, explains to Foster how to operate a rocket-launcher is the funniest thing I’ve seen this year.
"Where's the cameras?"
@Ionas dont think video games are to blame this films set in like the early 90s and i dont remember any video games being that detailed on how to use a rocket launcher lol. More likely id say movies or tvs show are to credit with the kid knowing how it works.
@@shireyed I watched the movie yesterday and the kid explicitely says he saw how to do it on TV
@@Jinars. I need to watch it again it's a great look at how even a normal Joe can snap and lash out
Thay was cj when he was a kid.
Most poignant moment: the black man being arrested outside that bank. Just like Bill, worked hard all his life and is rewarded by being shit on. He was even dressed like Bill.
"Don't forget me." I still haven't
I'm not economically viable - I can relate
I've always said that is the most important part of the movie.
@@grease_monkey6078 Same.
Meh...
Jig apologism bologna. They're not economically viable or civilizationally viable.
The small details of this movie often go easily missed, how the traffic jam clears shortly after he storms off is one of them but there are many more that just show how his day would of gone if only he could of held steady for just a few more minutes and this could of been an indicator for everything else in his life, it provides much food for thought and has always been one of my favourite movies for that reason
Never knew about that detail, really cool.
His car also broke down I think
@@-10 They kind of show it during the movie but they don't draw too much attention to it
@@IronFishChannel Not 100% on that but i'm almost certain the car would of been overheating, not sure if the car had broken Air conditioning or something but they show a closeup of the air vents to remind you the car is blowing hot air through it and into the cabin to cool the engine, making it more a sweatbox than it already would of been.
@@mickieg1994 Didn't they do that? I could just be misremembering.
My favorite thing about Falling Down is something I didn't realize during my first watch--it's an understated dark comedy. The way the gangsters botch their driveby so absurdly badly, the way the female cashier at the burger place gets googoo eyes for him but only after he pulls a gun and rants about service, the way he can't figure out how to use his bazooka till a little boy on a bike shows him how. It's the perfect touch for such a misanthropic movie, and it's never so overt as to detract from the tragedy or drama.
Probably what would happen in real🤣 truth is stranger than fiction after all
I watched this movie as a kid. My dad told me always be nice to people you never know what kind of day they are having. Good advice.
So did I and my mom told me the same thing, but living in Juarez has done more to drive home that message than anything.
I watched this as a child with my father too and he said pretty much the same thing. Funny how that works
@@woag2098 an economically viable outlook
Wise words indeed.
My great aunt made a similar exception with rated R movies in teenagehood, with "Bad Boys" starring Sean Penn. Years before that she kept saying "you don't wanna go to a bad boy school".
“Don’t you feel sorry for not letting me pass through your golf course? Now you’re gonna die wearing that stupid little hat. How does it feel?” That part of the movie puts me in stitches every time
That's textbook sociopathy. Why do you find it funny?
That's funny to you? A guy dying because he owned a golf course and didn't want a guy trespassing on it for no reason?
@@deaconblackfire2896 it’s a movie bro calm down
to be fair the golf course should have been a park where mothers could take their children to play
@@deaconblackfire2896 Yes.
"I'm the bad guy? How did that happen? I did everything they told me to."
One sentence that perfectly sums up the tragedy of the society that produced D-FENS and also his own naivety.
This wasn't that kind of film but the real answer is "It was done on purpose to line some super rich persons pockets and it ain't just you. getting the shaft."
IMO he isn't naive, he understands exactly what he's doing and that it's wrong
Man abused his family and told his wife he could legally kill her in some South American countries... he's been the bad guy, he just never considered himself "bad"
Nah, not really. I'm sure his family told him to stop being abusive.
@@MarceloAbans except it's stated in the movie by the wife that it was his temper that scared her but he never layed a hand on either her or the daughter.
@@michaelgamble2848 yeah the film shows Douglas spiral from the normative to abyss
He wasn't evil, he was broken.
He was evil!
The guy snapped because, of a failed relationship.. A fallen n, evil society that's run by the haves n, the have nots struggle to keep pace..He however, sees the morals decline plus; only hopes for a simpler time..
@@frankt285 He was evil! You responding like a typical wht man! Doing evil and blame society!
@@MissTia777 I disagree with you..No I'm not.. study how corruption has taken over everything and, people just sit idle-ly by just watching yet, not doing anything...
@@frankt285 He was evil! Other people had the same problems in the world or worse and not going around shooting people! You speaking like an American Wht man! Much worse happen in the middle east and ukraine!
This episode left me in tears. William's story is so upsetting and self-destructive. It's awful and sad. I remember seeing this film in the theater and it never hit me as hard as it did today.
@God Johnson yeah I wish a can of coke was eighty-five cents let alone fifty.
@God Johnson That's why I cried. Because this character out of so many of the villains in this series is probably the one who hits closest to home. It's almost an everyman story.
I watched Falling Down again for the first time in almost 20 years recently. I was certain that the weapons progression the GTA games was based on this movie.
When I seen the Tech-9, I was thinking the exact same thing man haha.
So Joel Schumacher is the secret genius behind GTA?
Falling down is an underrated film
Underrated isn't the right word, because almost anyone who talks about it or reviews it gives it the praise it deserves. It's overlooked. It was a drama in the 1990's, one of the most shallow decades imaginable, and as such got mostly swallowed up by your typical big budget blockbuster movies.
Facts.
@@thisismyyoutubecommentacco6302 thank you for explaining the difference
@@robd1329 no…don’t even say that
@@thisismyyoutubecommentacco6302 1990's being shallow? Where were throughout the 2010s? Have you seen Cardi B yet?
We're living through one of the most grotesque and degenerate decades in human history right now!
The system used him until he was no longer of any use..
" One who has been denied the embrace of his village will burn it down to feel its warmth. "
Source of quote?
@@xlxfjh African Proverb. Look it up
Great quote.
He was no longer financially viable
He was not economically viable
The beginning scene, being stuck in traffic is perfect. The culmination of small irritations driving you crazy.
It's inspired by the opening in 8 1/2, which is more surreal.
Good pun, traffic, driving
And then his meek, mild reply with the word "going home" LMAO
including the little girl in front of him which reminded him of his little girl and how he missed her
Also California traffic in LA is terrible (Bay Area traffic is also pretty bad, where I live)
This film was The Joker long before that film gained praise. This movie deserves more credit and praise since it still resonates today as it did then.
Yeah; I feel this film on a somewhat personal level. The sense of hopeless nostalgia; and raw emptiness.
It’s something I’m trying to change so I don’t end up in such a miserable fate. I’m also trying to better myself as a person- only time can tell
Same with taxi driver
The Joker is just this movie with a DC name taped over it
theres like a list of movies that are joker but better. Falling Down, Taxi Driver, Drive, etc
If you think D Fens is a hero, you missed the whole point.
I like how throughout Dfens day, he levels up from mediocrity to an extremist. Started with a tie, t shirt and a briefcase, ends up with a jumpsuit, duffle bag of bullets and weapons and a launcher.
falling down is like a RPG game where you level up
Like Far Cry.
@@inzane1260 Well, Die Hard was similar... 'Now I have a machine gun... HO HO HO"
This movie is literally just Postal but good
@@thespiciestmeme1181 the postal movie but better
Falling down is such a gem to me, the whole concept "I did everything I was supposed to" it's so relatable
Awesome film
If you relate to this man at all you need extensive therapy and also probably need to be added to a list.
@@ravenfrancis1476 so, you've never had a bad day? You've never thought about punching someone out of frustration? You've never had things in life go wrong for you time and time again? You've never wanted to go back to a time where you were happy when you currently were not? You've never been so frustrated/angry/mad that you did something you later regretted? You've never had hindsight and saw that the actions you took were not right?
You don't have to take the same actions to relate to him. You don't have to shoot up a burger joint or blow up a crane to relate to him. You relate by understanding that these things that set him on that path are everyday things that just pile up, little by little, and everyone is expected to just quietly take them with no outlet. You relate by understanding that you want to vent your own frustrations. This film shows how the method he chose to vent, the reasoning behind it, his unwillingness to stop and think about what would happen, caused the downfall of not only himself, but of all those around him. It basically is saying," yeah, it might feel good and justified in the moment, but the aftermath is far worse for you and those around you than you could imagine."
You could very easily end up in the same situation, with a cop pointing their gun at you, were your wold to slowly fall apart and one day you just can't take it anymore.
@@ravenfrancis1476 Written like someone who is very, very frightened of reality, who takes refuge in repeating Dr. Phil level judgement of others.
@@ravenfrancis1476 You're part of the problem, pal.
I mean... a ton of people seriously had it coming in this movie.
The gang members were the only ones that had it coming. They actively and unjustifiably threatened his well being. Everyone else was either totally innocent or just not a great person. Even the neo-nazi dude, as terrible as that entire lifestyle is, only threatened to turn William in to the cops. The vast majority of the people he hurt were just normal every day people doing normal every day things and he hurt them because they weren't doing things the way he thought they should.
Society and, him not letting go of the past made him whom he became..
Yeah, dude is obviously not evil. The video trying to make him somehow culpable for the gang shooting is laughable
@@ReverendMeat51 demanding a discount from a store clerk over political issues that neither of them have any hand in and then destroying his store when he didn't get it.
Blowing up a construction site with a rocket launcher because they were blocking the road and the guy who he talked too wasn't perfectly polite.
Threatening Fast Food workers at gun point because HE was too late for their breakfast.
Yep. Not evil at all.
@@Blasted2Oblivion yes. Not evil.
The saddest thing is that there are millions of people like him suffering this way.
Even worse with the current POS president in office .. 🙄🤷♂️🤞
Reminds me of Bill Burr’s segment on “functioning psychopaths”. We all have a little crazy in us from the madness of the world, but only a small portion of people act on those feelings.
Exactly. That's why his story is so poignant.
@Austin Edwards I see Donald Trump is still the president of your thoughts.
F*** those people... you don't get to be a terrorist just because you can't deal
In his defense...the burgers at McDonald's never look like on TV or as advertised but want the full price
In his... d-fens
yeah 1 dollar for a burger, surely expensive.
@@Immolator772 missing the point nothing new on the internet. Regardless of the price the item should match the picture, if not it's false advertising
@@grease_monkey6078 false advertising, yet it's still one of the most popular food place.
I make those burgers, I do my best
This is such a relevant character to today’s world.
It's a timeless film. As relevant today as it was 30 years ago, as it will also be in another 30 years.
Trump supporters are just like him, world would be 1000x better without them
Yep. We have a society that demonizes straight white males. It's a dangerous formula that leads to these kind of implosions.
@Aristotle was Not a fan of Plato we need real action against his supporters or their going to stage a coup again when he loses in 2024. Put his voters on terror watch so they can’t do it again
@@clarencejones8180 good white men are why the country is in such a bad state
When your work steals so much time from you that it affects your family life and then they toss you aside like nothing, leaving you jobless, without your child or wife, it's bound to make anyone snap
I don’t think they “tossed him aside”, it seems like he became angry and abusive. Can’t blame that on the family tbh
@@willw5868 meant his job more than his family
The world didn’t take his child and wife away tough. It’s his family, not shown in the movie but easy to assume he was at fault for his divorce and relationship with his daughter. Because, you know, it’s a family. They didn’t get murdered by the state or starved because society didn’t care about them. They left him because he was bad
@@willw5868its never stated or shown he was abusive, the wife literally separated because she stated she "Feared" he could possibly become abusive later on in life, which is a pretty lame sob story.
@@willw5868 No where in the movie do I recall does anything reasonably point to him having become angry and abusive before he lost his job. Was there reason to think he was lying near the beginning when he stated that he lost is job because they said he had become obsolete?
Great pick. More people need to watch this movie.
Also Johan Liebert from Monster would make for an awesome video me thinks
johan oooh that a good one
Samuel Jackson in _Changing Lanes_ would make for a good analysis.
Yeah Johan is one of the most interesting villains I've ever seen
I'm still waiting for Johan.
Monster is one of the most boring, unsatisfying, overhyped animes I've ever seen. I truly don't understand why people find it entertaining or find Johan intimidating in any shape or form.
I seriously disagree that it's remotely his fault people died in the shoot out. I agree it wasn't good he took a gun from them, but it's totally on those thugs for threatening his life twice. It's all on them that they literally shot everything but him.
from what I understood the way he was puting it is that it's his fault through butterfly effect, that if he never started on this chain event by leaving his car it wouldn't have gotten to that and those people wouldn't have lost their lives, but that's just stupid, it's not like he could've known, and if you think about anything and everything based on what if's then obviously everything could've gone better, but it didn't. so ye the one part I strongly rooted for him was when he stood up to the gangster lowlifes like that.
ese Rios and crew needed shooting AND driving lessons.
Agreed.
@@nocsiou unfortunately consequences for your actions you had no way of knowing could happen is not indicative of your morality, Foster did not want those people to die nor did he intentionally cause those thugs to attack him
@@nocsiou When your moral framework means you can't hold minority criminals up to the same moral standards you'd expect from anyone else, you have to start making excuses.
"A man who is used to acting in one way never changes; He must come to ruin when the times, in changing, are no longer in harmony with his ways." Niccolò Machiavelli
Pertinent now more than ever.
“He who fights monsters must be careful to not become one himself”
@@spencerfoote6977 Nietzsche
Here is a what if? What if one person on that day showed compassion for just a moment to William? Or even seem an act of compassion. Like if he was on the bus and a pregnant woman was standing with a bag of groceries on the bus and young man gave up his seat for her, that could’ve changed his whole day by witnessing that one simple act of compassion and not feeling like the world is totally lost.
Well then it would be a different movie, but I hear you. A simple act of kindness can make all the difference if you're not too far gone.
Unfortunately I don’t think that would solve anything, as Foster clearly is suffering from some sort of mental illness. He does encounter a few pleasant people, the cashier at the Whammy Burger, the kid who helps him with the rocket, the old man’s friend who tried to defuse the situation, and the father who tried to protect his daughter, but the truth is that his life is so terrible at this point that just the traffic jam was enough to start his descent into insanity
Yup
He literally did a 180 whe he saw his daughter and his wife stopped being showing utter hostility towards him for a minute, showing that, except for the Nazi guy, William would not have snapped if people treated him with a decent degree of respect.
You don't have to cater to his demands, but you can explain things with more empathy instead of threatening him and dismissing him, but apparently demanding a modicum of human decency is villanous.
Like meritocracy which is apparently fascism for people nowadays.
The caretaker family with the bbq was nice to him. Didn't make any difference.
I think an important aspect not in this analysis is the scene when DFens comes across an African-American man (Vondie Curtis-Hall) who is dressed identically like DFens, picketing across the street because he too has lost his job, and is as he says "no longer economically viable". The man is then arrested and taken away by police but before the squad car pulls away, and the 2 lock eyes and Hall says "don't forget me", to which DFens then answers, "I won't." This short little vignette illustrations a number of things: DFens is not in any way racist, he instead sees people for what they are instead of race; there are many others out there exactly like him who are going through identical struggles; people like him who are being plowed over by progress who society then disregards and makes "not economically viable" any longer; and the fear that these workers who've given their lives to a job or society and 'played by the rules' feel they are not rewarded, and instead are forgotten about (fired, etc).... and many more little things in that little exchange. This seems like a crucial theme amd allegory in the back half of the film as the madness ensues.
D-Fens there sees that man as a fellow working America , someone like him who belongs in this country not some economic migrant. Race or Racism was never in the picture. He also displays a degree of what Marxists call class consciousness which is rare in Middle Class people especially these days. The US could honestly use a lot more of it and with the screw ups are "elites" have made of late I suspect we'll see that lot more of it . Best of all, it crosses racial lines so the divisive racism and mass immigration the elite use to destroy solidarity can be pushed out of the picture.
It's ironic that the picketer is arrested. The cops ignore D-Fens, who is much more dangerous, as he already has his gym bag of guns by this time.
@@stevekaczynski3793 Yeah, almost like Hall takes more the intellectual approach (maybe cause he's a decade younger) and tries picketing and is then arrested for maybe trespass, while DFens is snaking through the environment and getting crazier and crazier at what hes encountering...
We certainly found that out when he killed the Nazi
Sidenote: London Bridge playing as D-fens inspected the snow globe in that scene was also a nice touch.
"And now you are going to die wearing that stupid hat. How does that feel?" Best line in the film
While I consider the golf cart scene disproportionate, I will admit I agree that golf courses should be put to more use than from middle-retired aged men to putter-about on.
"Think about it"
@@changvasejarik62 He shot the guys golf cart he didn't know the dude would have a heart attack lol.
@@changvasejarik62 Golf and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race
@@ReverendMeat51 this might be the best comment I've ever seen on any site.
One thing that you missed is the scene with the black man picketing outside the bank and how Douglass’ character and he immediately identify with each other. It blunts the notion that he was a racist and reveals a more fundamental truth, namely that of the working man being thrown away in the name of “progress”. The movie reveals that society is not in a good way, and that while he responded to change in the wrong way, change in itself is not always for the better. Indeed, progress can and often does go in the wrong direction.
Whereas this character may not have been racist, that doesn't mean that there aren't working class white men that aren't predominantly racist. If you were to have grown up in the south, this wouldn't be a mystery to you. You just tried to say that his manner of thinking can lead to progress, when it never can. If you think it can, quit insinuating that that's what needs to be done, and give us some theater by trying it yourself. I want to see how far you get when trying. Or if you're just speaking like you're in a movie, and are not honestly talking about taking up matters in your own hands, then realize you're not talking about anything and you're just saying things because it sounds good. The reason he was the bad guy is because he was the bad guy, and anyone who thinks like him and carries out matters how he did are the evil in which they are supposedly fighting against.
whilst its true that poor people have much in common, the old saying still holds true. "If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you."
and unfortunately a great deal of the white working class is very keen on falling for it.
@@richardarnez4932 Sure, but for the purpose of the movie, it is significant that both characters are dressed the same and have the same basic haircut too. The fact the black man gets arrested then does bring it around to show he would still be having a harder time within the system than DFense does.
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516 Hit the nail on the head.
@@boarfaceswinejaw4516 it's the Pitbull on the porch analogy. The rich represent the person inside the house, and they've given a perceived limited amount of food to the white pitbull that starvingly comes up onto his porch. The dog of color comes up to the porch, starving just like the white dog was, except the homeowner tells the white dog "you see that dog of color, that dog is coming to take what little food that I was generous enough to give you, don't let them". The white pitbull doesn't exactly know why he doesn't like the other dog, other than there is a perceived amount of resources and the rich are playing on the base instincts of pattern recognition and association against the working class whites and people of color.
It’s extremely disorienting when future scenes are randomly jumbled in while your retelling the story
Good second monitor audio content tho.
I have to stop you. I agree that the protagonist caused his morning to begin badly but blaming him for thugs committing murder in retaliation for trying to rob and then stab an innocent person is just nonsense.
Yeah, I feel you too. I love the videos this dude makes but some of the points he has just don't make sense. It's not like D-Fens could see into the future nor choose what some thugs do.
@@clonts5531 exactly where I’m coming from.
They retaliated and are responsible for that action, but if not for the earlier interaction with Foster, it might not have occurred. Like Breaking Bad, one situation or interaction will have consequences down the road.
@@pjbrown4736 I just can’t agree. There is no way for the thugs to have known about his day so in their minds he is just some guy walking in their gang area. They attacked an innocent person, he fought back, they murdered people to get revenge. Blaming anything else D-Fens did in the day as why he somehow wasn’t allowed to walk in a place where a gang terrorizes people just doesn’t add up.
I agree with you that D-Fens had every right to defend himself from the gang members and that their decision to hose the area with automatic weapons fire was totally unjustified. But Vile Eye has opted for the opposite interpretation which has led to this debate, so it served its purpose in that regard.
Let’s be honest. D-fens is great because he is doing things we’ve all thought about doing at one time or another. Basically he’s just sick of the system he cooperated with even building weapons for a country which treated him like another tool for the machine. Everything was his “I’ve had enough of this shit!”
My problem with D-fens is that he directs his anger towards people who have nothing to do with his downfall. If he had gone solely after people on the company that wronged him, i would understand. But dude wreck a neighborhood store, points a gun to a fucking mcdonalds worker and basically threatens to kill his own wife and daughter, after an abuse being implied. I feel sympathy for the dude's situation, but he is not a great guy.
@@thalesanastacio760 this is true. But I’d say for d-fens, playing devil’s advocate, that by the time the movie started he was so far down his frustration that he had a cynicism toward anyone who remotely resembled his former cross. Basically every person he confronted was a mirror of his recent experiences.
@@Stitchman3875 I do agree with that, but at the same time not so much. I think he projected a bit his frustrations and what he thought the frustrations meant onto people. His rampage reminds me that of rioters, that burn down buildings and property that has nothing to do with the reason of their frustration, even though the reason they are angry are valid.
@@thalesanastacio760 Seriously, the McDonalds bit annoyed me. Like those poor guys deal with enough crap every day with little reward and this guy just terrorizes them as an entitled snob over a sandwich.
That's why it's a good movie. It spends the majority of the time pointing out how awful our society can be and even "justifying" some of his actions (to a point), but also reminding the viewer that his actions are not a viable response. Duvall's character sums it up near the end with the "They lie to everyone.." quote.
I may not agree with this character's actions. However, I do fully understand him.
It's almost as if.....that's what the writers point was....
@@richardarnez4932 Then seeing comments like this is a good thing.
Lol
@@toplobster740 Thank you for enjoying seeing my comment.
oh he breaks a few laws and that makes his actions evil? How many people do terrible things that aren't laws? The character just got tired of being a soy boy, and decided to be a man.
A man who played by the rules and then realizes that the rules changed and he feels betrayed. If you were around in the 90s, a lot of people felt like this. Jobs went overseas thanks to Nafta. Defense employees were let go in the thousands after the cold war.
NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement. Between USA, Canada and Mexico. There is no sea involved. Gulf 1 cranked up, all the toys got used and defense contractors got 2 decades more. What planet were you living on? My brother and I served in the late 80's to early 90's and my mom worked at LANL doing a very similar job to what is depicted in this film. She learned how to operate a keyboard is the difference.
@@ATEC101 I think he just misspoke I think he was talking about when Japan damn near bought NY City in the late 80s. I served 88-92 the entire time E-5 points 999 and RIF putting people out with 15 years.
Should have moved overseas. Them defense contractors just want the government to give them a handout /s
@@ATEC101 You're not from So.California. Defense contractors were major employers here at one time. I remember when Fort Ord and Norton AFB closed down in 92-94 it destroyed the local economies.
@@DeepVerma728hence, a real life story can play into the setup of D-FENS.
Quite possibly the scariest aspect of this movie is that it could happen to anyone. Even when we conform to societal expectations and do what everyone else thinks is right, any one of us could wind up just like this guy and we may not even realize it until it's too late. Because he wasn't some gangbanger, he wasn't a con-artist, he wasn't a criminal. He was a law-abiding citizen, college educated, white-collar worker and despite all of that, in his view, he was still a victim of society.
_"I'm the bad guy? How did that happen? I did everything they told me to."_
I think literaly the same...
And while others will mock these people for thinking they're victims, perception is reality. Doesn't take much for someone to snap.
@God Johnson I wouldn't say he was self righteous, just that he did what he was supposed and society didn't give back what he put in. His entire career became "not economically viable", prices of everything went up but he wasn't payed more to compensate, safe local areas were taken over by crime, peace and quiet stopped existing in due to the hustle and bustle of modern life that was supposed to be "better". He was given a raw deal, and was shown to not be the only one. And it's true to today, it's not self righteous that killed America, it was unsustainable rampant materialism, treason, and the refusal to defend the nation in the name of acceptance. This could happen to any other country who's elite sold the people out and does. This affects most of the West and non Western "1st world nations". The "deal" of late modernity was a con job.
*used to be a white collar worker*
But that didn't stop the corporations from doing what they did, or inflation, or anything else. His job and education didn't safe him. He was a victim too (not talking about the domestic abuse of course), just because he was better dressed than others didn't change that.
@God Johnson you said it yourself that the American people had to be duped into the world police narrative, but even then most had to be forced. There's a reason they kept using the draft so much. So again, I wouldn't call it self righteousness, most legacy Americans just want to be left alone and not worry about all that.
But I agree with your other points,
"Don't try to dispute this with me"
And now who is self righteous brother? Don't be so quick to isolate yourself. I disagree with the fall being due to self righteousness (unless talking about the elite themselves of course, for they surely are) but the rest we are more or less in agreement of. Victors indeed right the history books, and unfortunately most will never understand what the world wars were really about.
But unfortunately yes, the US will most realistically balkanize, though I'd prefer a reconquista eventually.
I love the character of D-fens, he is the most human and also inhuman character at the same time. He is one of us put on a screen with exaggerated reactions to all of our frustrations. He is indeed a bad guy but for a good reason.
Unpopular opinion but me and a lot of others think he’s the good guy, there is only so much a person can take before being justifiably angry, people say he should have done what he did yet fail to provide other solutions for people in such distress.
yeah, he did not cared about possibly killing that old man just because the dude was an asshole, yet, minutes later he dispairs about possibly injuring the little girl. he's a great character
@@DMAGAEscober therapy. you can get angry and not go on a shooting rampage
@@quantum6692 I am certain his health care coverage provided plenty of that; oops, he was laid of from the company he spent his entire adult life at doing everything he was told.
@@DMAGAEscober He started out as a good guy but he turned into the bad guy. He didn't turn into the bad guy because he wanted personal gain but because of tragedy which is what makes labelling him as such so hard. As Duval pointed out at the end, he has seen this all before and he knows exactly how it is going to end.
I am my friends all felt lots of sympathy with Douglas' character. This film was released in Feb 1993 and we saw it in the theater together. I had just gotten my aerospace engineering degree two months earlier in Dec 92. Some friends had graduated with me, others were graduating in the coming spring. We all had had the rug pulled out from under us. Aerospace Engineering was directly tied to defense. In the 80s while going to High School engineering from Grumman Aerospace came to career day. Grumman was a place people went to work at when leaving school and stayed until they retired. Likewise for those at Lockheed, Northrop, General Dynamics, Fairchild, etc. We all had know engineers who had spent their entire lives in defense. When we started school in 88 or 89 every graduate had a job waiting. When I graduated in Dec 1992 NOT ONE graduate had a job in the field; I was delivering pizza. The cold war had ended while we were in school and the entire defense and aerospace industry imploded while we attended classes. Back home on Long Island the aerospace companies were collapsing like everywhere else. Not long later while working at Home Depot so I could have health benefits we were full of former Grumman engineers looking to pay their mortgages. I stood next to one as he mixed paint on a Saturday and he turned to me and said "My signature is on the back of a panel on the base of the Lunar Module still sitting on the moon and now I am mixing paint." That frustration was in his mind and the mind of all my friends and I. We had done everything we were told. We had worked our asses off to fill the roles we were told were waiting for us and the rug was pulled out from under us.
We ALL sympathized with William and it was hard to see exactly where he slipped over the line until it was too late. That is a testament to how "real" the whole story was. Take everything he had worked towards his whole life being shredded and then loosing his family and he becomes what police call a "two time loser." Basically if there is a guy on a ledge threatening to jump you get him to focus on his family to get over losing his career or you get him to focus on his career and legacy to overcome losing his family to talk him down. If you have a guy who has lost both then he is going to jump and all you can do is buy time to get the area clear of people and prepare for it. William was a two time loser and a tragic figure but in the end he was the bad guy even though he didn't start as one. The loss of his family really did it to him and if you watch and listen closely you will see that he never actually did anything violent to his family to justify his removal from his daughter's life. If anything it sounded like it was simply the wife's divorce attorney playing spousal destruction 101 which still goes on. In the end William was violent and his path to being such was tragic specifically because it didn't have to happen.
Honestly the most relatable villain.Society can make anyone lose his mind.
if u let it
We do be living in a society
Villain is not an accurate word.
This is the same concept seen in Breaking Bad. Honestly its a surprise this doesn't happen rather more often in reality than it does.
@@smokeythecat2726 my question to you is what if it never ends and it just keeps going. Do you expect people to just keep enduring and not snap?
I think you missed one of the more important callbacks, foster got his “not economically viable” line from a similarly disillusioned man who is arrested for protesting outside a bank and tells foster to remember him. This shows that he did remember and connect with the man, and adds another layer to the class conflict (like with the golf course and the mansion) to d-fens’s story
I'd forgotten about that. Cool pointm
Of course he missed it because that man was black, and making William empathise with a black man would break down the narrative he had built for the video where William is a white supremacist that beats his wife.
that would have invalidated the fact that op portrays him as racist for some reason.
Im not sure I would categorize D-Fens as an evil character. He's destructive, and violent but without malice. Don't get me wrong his actions weren't justified, he is sympathetic to a point. He strikes me as someone who is used to backing down and was pushed around until he reached his breaking point. He is more of a poster child for adult mental health issues.
He did murder the nazi right?
He was going to kill his abused ex wife and child. He was evil.
@@robirvine6970 In that sense yes but what I gather it seems that he wasn't aware of abuse he was causing and it seems he was viewing the past through rose tinted glasses, it was when he saw the tapes of him he understood the harm he caused which adds more to his bitter realization "I'm the bad guy?*
@@kwayneboy1524 exactly. He was under going a mental breakdown and believed he was a good man standing up for himself and those like him until the empirical evidence showed him otherwise and snapped him back to reality.
He was destructive, harmful, and dangerous. He was a threat to his ex and their daughter. That being said he was clearly not in his right mind. There wasn't malice, any of the other traits we view as evil. When he was confronted with everything he had a moment of clarity and made a move to take himself off the board. He may have done it to escape going to prison, but I am certain he did it because he was trying to make sure his family got his life insurance. He also didn't want them to be tainted anymore by his actions.
@@ryanarment5393 well put my friend
What i find interesting about the movie, is that the sargeant following him is also a middle aged man with relationship problems and at a moment in life that he is not at his prime anymore, with things not going his way, and with internal frustrations about his condition. He, on the other hand, faces his problems and solve them without exploding and hurting himself and everyone around him in the process. I guess it's the movie saying there is a way out of this situation, but the main character ends up being the example of what you should avoid.
True but the reality is, at least for a moment foster was free, the cop will never be free, in society everything is based on personal gain if you need a cure most likely they have discovered it, but want money over a true moral act. Everything is this way so every action or reaction involves wanting something from someone and vice versa. But imagine a world where everybody just got what they deserved, everyone gets a set amount of money or healthcare everyone gets a free education everyone can have a invidual path or collective path, things could be taught differently based on students ability or type of learning clothing would be cheaper accessing water and a place to clean yourself wouldn't just be for people with homes but for everyone homeless included, we could redesign buildings for disabled people giving each building access for all people we could invest in lifesaving technology and not wars or oil. All these things could be done in our real world, the problem becomes who will do it who will work towards the glory of humanity without pay who would die for something beyond their personal success, not many would. If we all worked together maybe it could happen today. Many things bother me like foster does but thats because I have aspergers depression anxiety and a learning disability I have failed to find work here on the west coast but I have no money to leave I relate to him because many will go along and get along with everything I've seen it in my parents they have worked for years and we have had no peace from our life even though we are middle class if moved somewhere cheaper we would be living in a mansion. Believe or not people choose their cage or they set the standard of their life to meek and your wife cheats takes the kids your money the house, too agressive everyone sees you as monster doesn't matter if someone annoys you or constantly pokes the bear you are the badguy for reacting this environment wants robot android people I can't but be angry around this sitautionally of course I wouldn't harm others but the message he is behind is a good TLDR (don't be a slave) (liberty or death) (all it takes is one good act to change a life) (don't let people trample you).
100 percent. No villain (or hero) is quite complete without a foil, and the Sergeant pursuing D-Fens is like him in nearly every way, save for how he's responded to these issues.
A major difference between Robert Duval's character and Michael Douglas's, is that Duval was a police officer while Douglas was an unemployed engineer. Duval did not have to face the kinds of problems Douglas had.
@@donaldrichie3203
Does it matter if it wasnt the same? The policeman suffered just the same as foster, but he never snapped.
Job and circumstances are irrelevant.
@@acrsclspdrcls1365 It certainly does matter. Robert Duval's character had a steady job with a living wage, and a pension when he retired. D-FENS had lost his job in the private sector due to downsizing. Being unemployed is much worse than having a job.
29 years ago, I rooted for him in 1993.
Now, in 2022 I mourn for him.
Based
Same...he didn't deserve what was done to him...if it wasn't, he wouldn't have done it.
You rooted for a violent sociopath?
@@xlxfjh Everyone can be a violent sociopath if pushed to hard for too long...
And things have only gotten worse. The internet, mindless culture wars, and corporatism have sucked the soul out of humanity.
I feel this character so much. In highschool I got bullied so badly, abused by my family and everyone around me, it made my anger grow and grow and grow. No one cared, or even noticed how badly I was being treated. One day in highschool I got attacked and no one would help me even though I was surrounded by people watching. I hit the person that attacked me once, and he fell backwards and cracked his skull open. I was kicked out of school, everyone in my family treated me like I was the attacker, and a horrible monster, my friends families told them to not hang out or deal with me, and everyone just assumed I was a violent monster that no one should talk to, deal with, or interact with.
When I asked people why everyone hates me I was told "Because you arethe bad guy" and I too was like "I am the bad guy? I did everything people told me my whole life. I never meant to hurt or upset anyone."
No one cares about details of a story. If the story ends with someone getting their skull broken, who ever did it is a bad guy.
Your story is all too common, friend. The world is cruel. I'm sorry you had to go through that.
This is why I didn’t defend myself in school. For a large part, I was always the one demonized. Didn’t matter what I did. Ultimately these people make you bad because it’s an immediate gratification for them. “Hey, look we spotted the threat, it’s fine now” sort of a mentality. They watch for entertainment. But ultimately deny any responsibility in being decent individuals. Everyone is the hero.
But somebody has to teach them to act human, To stop bullying and hurting people, You gotta defend your right unless people will use you or bully you. If people judge your right actions then that's not your problem, They are the problem. Ignore the people around you. If they're going to judge you wrongly then fuck them, These people ain't worth it. They'll just grab you down till you become one of them.
(btw I'm not a native English so pardon me if I've made)
Just live for yourself, never give them the satisfaction of being right. In time youll forget about them. It's the only real revenge you'll ever get.
Please don't turn into a shooter. Get some help.
Michael said this was his favorite character that he's portrayed on film. It's in my top 100 favorite films....well cast, written, filmed and scored. William wasn't evil. He became psychotic due to cumulative environmental stresses over many years. He probably had a screw loose from childhood.
It's in my top thirty films
What many miss in this film is the juxtaposition between Bill (DFense) and Duvall's character. They are two sides of the same coin. Both have been deemed useless & expendable within their respective fields. Both are disrespected by their wives. The difference is how Duvall deals with this vs. Bill. Duvall has someone, he has his partner who has his back and vice versa. Bill has nothing, he has lost it all. IMO this movie is beyond just about social commentary of the modern age, it's about the absolute necessity and need for support on an emotional level. Duvall did not descend into nihilism as Bill did because Duvall had the emotional support of his partner. Duvall wound up punching out the younger, jackass cop who kept taunting him but if he were alone, without the support of his partner, he may have gone full Bill and just shot him. That's the crux of this movie IMO. Humans need, absolutely require human connection and empathy, without those, we all have the potential of becoming DFense.
As a criminal psychologist once put it,
"Genetics create the gun, upbringing loads the gun, and society causes the pull of the trigger."
@@Pfromm007 well gotdamn if that ain't accurate
I personally don't think it's okay for anyone to be subjected to cumulative environmental stresses. It's a sign of how much this country has fallen from grace!
The saddest thing is that the more the movie tries to make him look bad he ends up getting more relatable and sympathetic. Like when he launched the rocket he shielded the kid as an example. He was always human, just had a really bad day.
Boo hoo, the unhinged psychopath with a rocket launcher spared a thought to shield the kid who he just deceived in order to blow up his street
i like how the guy who made this vid tried to make him racist but just projected his elitist liberal views
I think he was subhuman
@@Helelsonofdawn ya him belittling the guy for having price match with inflation instead of sucking his dick for America for sending money to his country is not racist at all.
@@12halo3 no its not racist, because rcism is systemica but thats also a lie we tell so we can keep the democrat vote alive
This is the most underrated movie I've ever seen. It's still relevant even today 30 years after. I heard this is Michael Douglas's favorite role. The reason the movie works so well is we've all been in Williams shoes and can self identify with his situations. Hell the McDonald's scene never gets old and the construction workers on the road is something we are had to deal with.
The scariest thing is how relatable he is. He wasn't wrong about society, but he was mistaken in what role he himself played in all of this.
I mean he kinda wanted to mandate prices, get rid of ethnic minorities, and force his family to love him. He was very wrong about society. He just was very very entitled and the violence was just a funny way to show he was feeling strongly and crazy.
@@yucol5661 - He wasn't entitled...he was sick of being taken advantage of and witnessing a country that he was once proud of be defiled and corrupted. Tens or possibly even hundreds of millions of Americans feel the exact same way for many of the same reasons.
@@nkw1985most white supremacists held that view
@@Anverse-14 yeah but he is blue dabudee dabuda
@Adam-fw6dt Yet most Americans that feel like him feel about white supremacists the same way William feels about them.
When I first watched this, my reaction was "oh wow they are glorifying this guy's rampage."
By the end when he asks, confused, "I'm the bad guy?" I actually teared up.
Dude, fantastic to see you here, I just recently started watching and sharing you Tarkov video again.
We're D-Fens in Tarkov City. It's time to heal.
@@bhante1345 corny lmao
@@bhante1345 Love Vile Eye!!
A summary of this guy would be that saying that goes
"Sometimes one bad day is all it takes to make a murderer."
"It takes years to make someone a psychopath, but it only takes one day to make them murderous"
... already lurking within.
We are all William.
@@antoinehicks2681 that's the question
@@antoinehicks2681 I'm not. And I grew up poor. Don't blame your low self esteem or confidence on the system.
Falling Down has to be one of those rare gem movies that really drives home the ills of society. I understand D-Fens. I get him. Not EVERY aspect of him, but the majority. D-Fens is not an evil man. An angry man, but not evil. He represents all of us who are sick and tired of the world's apathy, greed, fraud, crime, disrespect, etc, and all it could take is ONE BAD DAY.
The Asian store scene- the owner did not deserve to be berated for his nationality, but he was part of a problem that was bigger than the way he affected D-Fens in the film. I didn't learn about this until years later. Small corner stores in inner cities take advantage of the people in the neighborhood. Many of the residents are too poor to have cars which relinquish them to what's available within a couple blocks. And guess what? Big corporate grocery and retail stores rarely put their stores in economically depressed areas (not saying big corporations aren't exploitive in their own ways). This leaves a black hole referred to as a food desert. Small corner store owners take advantage of this and jack up the prices to their small selection of items because their customers are pretty much stuck there.
So, perhaps D-Fens went haywire on the store owner for how he affected him alone, but as the movie shows many ills of society, I'm almost certain this larger problem (represented by one man's personal circumstance) was incorporated as a factor.
Well said!
Those same corner stores also lose a lot of their stock due to theft and have to pay high taxes.
Talk to some of those store owners and ask how much they make in profit. It's not a whole lot.
This was one of the reasons all those Korean owned stores in Compton were burned down during the riots. The black community saw them as just another exploitive factor within their neighborhoods. BTW, the whole Asian saving and working 5 jobs to buy that store is a myth. Asians, especially from China and Korea are given grants (money they do NOT have to pay back) to open businesses. They also get tax-free status for 7 years on those businesses they open. That's not their fault, any human regardless of race will take that deal, but they do not have to exploit a captive community as well.
@@tedwojtasik8781 Roof top Koreans. They were also one of the only ones brave enough to stand up to the scum trying to burn down their own city.
@@libertatemadvocatus1797 This is a very good point. Also it cost more for them to buy goods because they don't buy in massive bulk like the big corporate stores.
Scariest thing is we could all be William Foster
Sus.
Very much so
go to therapy
Speak for yourself dude
Based. 10000 correct
*watching this movie as a kid*
Me: what’s this dude’s problem?!
*Watching it as adult*
Me: “Oh I get it now.”
Uh, violent white supremacy?
I get it but I also thought he was a huge narcissistic dick throughout the movie, even now, even with me understanding all his motives.
Yep
Truth.
I feel kind of embarrassed that I had a good feel for his character at the age of 14 😧
He is a questionable character but one thing I love is how the film shows the difference between him and the skinhead. He's not a completely evil person
The skinhead also thinks his reasons are valid.
He killed more people than the skinhead lol
He is the enbodiment of evil. Narcissistic and self pity
Not only that, but he seems to have a connection and respect for the black man protesting at the bank. It shows his grievances are not necessarily racial, but more of being left behind and forgotten by a world he doesn't recognize anymore. I think that scene is absolutely vital to the character as well how treats the girl working at the fast food counter. He seems amiable to working class individual even though he doesn't consider the consequences of his actions on them. He is really lashing out at the world and those he views as what corrupted it. Rich men. Gnags.
I mean, it's more about how close he is to the skinhead.
oh man the end where he realizes he's the bad guy is pretty heart breaking.
This isn’t even an analysis you just summarized the movie
I wholeheartedly disagree with the conclusion of this video. This was the tale of a man falling down in the world of his time, NOT a man falling down into evil.
This was poorly written in general. Meh.
And what is your conclusion? This should be interesting.
I don't think he was saying William Foster turned evil. He was saying, and I quote from 14:26 "You turn into a hollow shell...one that is destined to fall down into a bottomless pit of evil."
So it's not that he turned evil but because he was so unable to adapt all he saw in the world was evil.
I know the series is called Analyzing Evil but nothing says the main character had to be an evil villain. There are many forms of evil and in this movie I think this video is more about analyzing his evil acts (hitting with a bat, destroying things, killing bad people in cold blood, etc.) That's what makes this movie so good and emotionally moving.
Not true. Even when things were going great in his life he was still an abusive father and husband. He shows all the symptoms of narcissistic personally disorder, anti social behavior and complete lack of empathy
@@jcarlovitch Catchy name. I agree with your statement, aside from the empathy part. Foster may’ve had ISSUES with empathy, but there were multiple scenes showing that he wasn’t incapable of it.
One of the most relatable "Bad Guys" in cinema.
Thulsa Doom next, please!🙏🏾
He's a hero to me.
I would love a breakdown on Doom
Oh hell yes, Doom please!
Steel isn't strong boy, flesh is stronger.
Uhhhh, I think he might still be the bad guy...
I don't think getting angry at society and going on a GTA rampage is something a hero would do.
If you really see his actions in any way heroic, please....
Well, I was going to say put yourself on an FBI watch list for all of our sake. But it's clear those don't do shit after all the other shootings,.
The real Postal Dude. But seriously though, I always feel like this guy whenever I'm at work.
The Postal Dude is the version of him who accepts the madness hehe
"I was here, just enjoying my 2nd amendment rights, and you people have to freak out on me"
@@eduardodiaz9942 "butt sauce"
Well, time to add you to the list of people who missed the point of the movie.
I was playing postal earlier today lol
Michael Douglas deserved a Oscar for this performance of a very relatable character. Well done!
I really like what you said at the end of the video, because for several years I have been disappointed and resentful of the current world we live in and wished we could go back to the "good times".
I have come to terms with this recently and have discovered that it's because when you have a young mind, times are naturally easier and you are less likely to even care about the "shape of the world". This is why nostalgia can really hurt you as a man and will only exist to torment you as long as you live with the idea of "it used to be so much better, now the world is ruined..."
“Grass is greener on the other side” mentality. It’s all about perspective and optics.
Maybe, but the world is still shit, despite how we view or gloss it.
@@philyeary8809 Yes, and drowning yourself in it isn’t a healthy lifestyle and will cut your time short. It’s best to just accept and live your life as best as you can with those you love until we all die.
We can't just assume it's ONLY our own minds though. I do think the world is objectively worse in many ways.
You have a point. Things only get more intolerable the older you get!
When the store clerk pulls out the bat, William reacts with a sharp militaristic instinct to protect himself. Only after being wrongly threatened is the destructive violence in him triggered. Same thing as when another guy flipped a knife in his face.
exactly! The guy that made this kinda sucks at the one thing he does. .
What about the guy he punches in traffic at the construction work? What about the police officer he shot? What about the driver of the crane he blew up? What about his family whom he intended to shoot and kill? Seems like you are being selective about what violence you are recognizing
@@cian104 I've never seen how he intended to kill his family. Where is it implied in the movie?
@@lemons1559 it could be interpreted this way, but i don' think he was going to do it. If anything, the only thing he truly loved was his daughter.
If you look during the scene where the detective interviews Bills mother, there's a framed purple heart signed to William, for being wounded in action. That could be his fathers but if it is addressed to bill then that means not only is he a guy who's been pushed to the edge by society, he's also a veteran that served his country both overseas and at home. Only for it to kick him to the wayside.
This could explain why he has anger issues before the film takes place (seen in the home video he watches near the end), which just makes his wife divorcing him even more tragic.
Never underestimate a man who has nothing else left to loose
lose
@@thinkingallowed6485 he meant loose, i ve been to prison and everythings loose and no fun so why not
Well, he began the movie having a tie to loose(n).
This is cringe, the main guy was a massive weak idiot that lost even more at the end. A person should never give up and follow their childish tantrum, its pathetic
@@Helelsonofdawn go back to prison and finish your GED
Out of all the villains in media, William is the one I feel the deepest connection to. No matter the mood I'm in, the things I've accomplished, or the future that's ahead of me, I can't shake the sense that some bullshit down the line would strip away everything I've loved, cherished, and worked so hard for.
And the worst part is that I have no one and nothing to pin it on. Just a cruel twist of fate that I have to swallow while the rest of the world carries on indifferently. Lives are ruined, systems break down, communities fall apart, and we're just told to stand there and take it? Hell no. I want things to get better, I want things to improve, well after I'm gone. And I'm willing to work my way to do it, but the world just keeps getting worse.
I'm not interested on if D-FENS was some misunderstood martyr or a psychotic monster. He needed to be stopped either way. My main query after all the events of the film is what lead us to this point, and what can we do to get out of it.
💯💯
Dude what. It's society that needed/s to be stopped.
This guy strikes me as a man who's had enough of being treated like the gum stuck underneath one's shoe. He went too far, which most people do when they lose their temper
This whole movie perfectly shows Jokers line about everyone being one bad day away from falling apart
True I struggle with the everyday.
I would argue his downfall had already started when he was fired, and he tried to keep up the charade without any idea what to do next.
I agree. When I saw Joker I kept thinking about this movie. There's a lot of parallels
@@SamsarasArt Absolutely, they both start at different points but the end result is the same. The Dark Knight Joker has something in the backstory that triggers it. The Arthur Fleck version again, while he has obvious mental health issues, tries to do his best until events just keep pushing him into what he becomes in the end
@@HB-in7wu I feel the same way. Joker shows us his life falling apart and his descent into madness where Falling down begins after the damage had already been done and shows us the chaos he's about to bring.
So with that in mind, if I were making a sequel to Joker, it would play out similarly to Falling Down.
William "D-FENS" Foster is one of the most truly relatable characters in a film. When you view this movie as if it were a tragicomedy, rather than as a thriller or action movie, it makes a lot more sense and is a lot more enjoyable. The viewer can live vicariously through Foster. It's a power fantasy. Everyone at some point in their life wishes they could do what Foster did, either out of anger, disillusionment, or boredom.
seek help like truly seek help if you view this movie as a power fantasy you need to talk to someone I am being 100% dead serious this is not a joke . Get therapy or talk to a friend there are people there for you
@@lazersfixall3939 You're crazy, the movie is very relatable just look at some of the comments, only two or three others commented the way you did so you're clearly the exception. As for this movie we all go through this and feel this daily but we cope as much as we can, as a kid my parents always repeated don't mess with people because you don't know what they're going through, I was always told by a grand parent that everyone's capable of anything even murder and that everyone has a breaking point, along with other sayings like the silent ones break first etc 100% dead serious, because the viewers can relate it is a "power fantasy" because who do you think we're cheering for during the movie? if anything that can help reduce some of our own daily stresses.
@@anonco1907 I never said this movie wasn't relatable. What I said was that if you relate to the movie you need help. This movie is about a man so childish that he blows up at minor inconveniences and doesn't give a that's ass about the people he hurts affects. That's why his wife left and that's why his mother is scared of him he did not have a bad day he was broken long before the movie started and he is a sign that people need to get help before they turn into him. Again if this movie (specifically the main character) is relatable then it calls for a look at yourself, your past, and the people you have an effect on because this man is a monster maybe he wasn't always like that but the movie made it very clear that he was one for a long time before the events of the movie
@@lazersfixall3939 "relate to the movie you need help" You don't understand that the mortality relate to this character and movie, you're saying that the moiety of people need to seek help, now that can't be right can it? I would personally rephrase that to who can't relate? Then I'd probably ask if they have a real full time job 5 days a week, bosses you have to eat shit from and family that uses your money up as it's coming in?
@@lazersfixall3939 "blows up at minor inconveniences" That's because he's already walking that tight rope, that line that's a breaking point everyone has.
This movie had a very interesting “realistic” villain, in Bill. Contrary to popular belief, he was NOT a perfect man who simply had his mind broken by everyday life. He was a broken man who had severe mental issues. He may not have been a hardened criminal or a neo-nazi, but he was not a saint either.
He spent his last day giving into all of his impulsive thoughts and engaging in violent and anti-social behavior. His actions have some semblance of understanding to them, but they are never justified.
In the end, he was man who loved his family and worked hard everyday to protect the U.S. always doing what he was told.
However, he was also a man who had severe anger issues, assaulted and robbed a store clerk, shot a man in the leg, held a fast food restaurant hostage, blew up a road, murdered a man, shot a golf cart and killed another man by manslaughter, and shot a police officer.
The fact he even asks “I’m the bad guy?” at the end of the movie really reveals his sociopathic and anti-social mindset throughout the course of the day.
No one should ever act like Bill. It is okay to think like him though, and use that knowledge to tackle problems in the real world today.
Everyone should act like Bill. The country was robbed from the masses, especially MEN. Women have a safety net, friends, corporations/banks and the government. Society had better watch it's back in 2029.
William is certainly not evil, I think that while his anger is understandable the way and people he unleashes his anger on are often too violent or unjustifiable, he's confused at why things are different and who's fault it is
You are smarter than they guy narrating it. He projects his own bias on the character.
@@MaynardCrow Narrator got this one totally wrong. He's synopsis seems to boil down to "society changes, like it or shut up and put up with being down trodding"
Sounds like the attitude from a pr rep from the WEF 😂
@@deezelfairy I mean, yeah its totally reasonable berating people and shooting up shit because you suffered.
@@flowgangsemaudamartoz7062 The man who mad this video says that its the protagonists fault gang members threatened him, lost a fight with him, and then shot other people. That's fucking dumb, and its not the only example of the narrator having a really extremist vision of the events.
@@coldeed Exactly, the only people who died due to William mostly deserved it. Murderous gangsters, a literal nazi who supports killing anyone who isnt white and a rich cunt who doesnt care about the well being of others(shown by almost hitting William with a golf ball). And even among them, he only killed the nazi.
There’s a fine, blurred line between calling this guy evil and relatable.
It is possible to be both
"There we go but for the grace of God."
The best villains are ones we believe.
And William is nothing if not a believable figure.
he wasn't "evil" in any way
His situation and thinking are relatable, it's his actions in trying to resolve his situation which makes him evil.
What, you never entertained your shadow?
You never faced your Dark Night Of The Soul? The Dweller On The Threshold?
And we wonder why the world is falling down....
Something that wasn’t mentioned, it’s implied in some scenes that Willam Foster was a Vietnam War Veteran.
Foster himself might be suffering from PTSD.
He had PTSD
He isn't that adept. He misses with his first shot after one of the thugs crashes the car, then he accidentally fires a burst of submachine-gun fire into the ceiling of the burger place. He seems to have been a civilian technician most of his life.
He wasn't a Vet....
@@stevekaczynski3793 The first time he missed it was on purpose.
You can’t miss from that distance with your target standing still at point blank range.
He worked for US defense during the Cold War so he might of had some firearm training.
This film shows that even modern life has its dangers and faults. You can have the "American Dream". The best job and the best family and then, one day you wake up and your boss is firing you and your wife is divorcing you. What's left is Michael Douglas' character in this film. As George Carlin said, "Its called the American Dream because you'd have to be asleep to believe it."
"Wait... you think im the bad guy? IM THE BAD GUY!?"
"But I did everything I was supposed to do."
Every man alive can absolutely relate to this character. We are all one step away from insanity in this modern world.
Only if you're weak and entitled, maybe.
@@Darkvega2k7 written in the words of someone who hasn't built anything they're afraid of losing. Pathetic really
@@gotpaladin9520 Oh no, a random nobody attacking my character and life with no context whatsoever. Fueled only by the sudden surge of butt hurt from my comment. Whatever shall I do against such scathing wit and insight.
Anyway...we know who fits the "weak" bill. Moving on.
@@Darkvega2k7 op has more likes than your reply soooo
It sure seems like it!
He's evil? Hell, he's probably the most relatable character ever.
The guy just wanted some breakfast
Tbf it can be both. Many people can be very tragic and sympathetic while still doing evil things overall. I think he fits into that role. He is very relatable and has it rough, something you can see in the movie, but he also has some not so good qualities too lol
I find the character more relatable today than I did when I first saw this film almost 30 years ago.
William is broken & lost and no one cares.
@@jackthetech5105 very relatable in 2022
He’s evil. He kills, he abused his family and he traumatised people out of a sense of entitlement.
Go to a different place if you want breakfast
Go to another store to get change
MAKE BETTER CHOICES
"Hey guys let's analyze this movie"
*Plot summary*
Right, I could've sworn he was just reading off soem random plot summary from a blog lol
No where near as bad as movies explained where the guy literally does just read the plot synopsis and offers nothing additional
William is a man who has become frustrated by every small thing in life, from the price of a can of soda to living in fear of violent gangs to being replaced at his job with few prospects beyond that due to his age, and adding insult to injury, watching his family fall apart due to him bottling up all of his frustrations… he’s a relatable man, at least, his frustrations are relatable to many of us in the working-class.
As time goes by this movie becomes more and more relevant.
Most of this is kind of a bad take. "He's certainly indirectly responsible... had he not started his morning with a spree of violence." You just pointed out that he was defending himself against the gang members. He's in no way responsible for their attempt to rob/kill him in the park OR for them following him anywhere. Defending one's self does not place responsibility for an aggressor's actions on you.
I think he's talking about when he smashed up the convenience store and got that Bat.
@@ShadowSonic2 That's fair. That was definitely on him and definitely violent.
He's a leftist, so he probably believes he should've apologized for existing to the gangbangers
He was the butterfly in the chaos theory.
When I was a teenager I so identified with him, saw him as a hero, when I saw it again at almost 40 , I was in a bit of horror to be honest, I was in a much better place mentally and more happy and content with life then I was in my late teens/early 20s.
When I was younger I saw the whole world failing him, when I got older I realized the choices he made and his mindset/attitude lead him to what he became.
Yup. Full-grown people who tell you how much they identify with this character totally miss the point and don't realize they're wallowing in their own very unattractive self-pity.
Maybe without knowing, but you just exposed the 2 main ways sociology view people : either as individuals making their decisions or as people in groups peer pressured. Both of your interpretations are correct.
Either Willian created his sorrow by his actions or the situation was created by the society he is in and turned him that way. In the end he is the sole actor of the bad things he does as he choose to do so, but the question lays in how responsible he is for what he is/how it happened.
I'm like you. I saw it in my college years, when i was dealing with a lot of bad stuff, and was in a bad place mentally and spiritually. If I were to watch it again now, I don't know that I could identify with DFens as I did then. Nihilism is a horrible thing to succumb to personally, but our society is so riddled with it, that its pull, like gravity, seems constant. It's hard to blame him for responding as he did, nothing to gain, nothing left to lose; but a family doesn't deserve to be kidnapped for not being perfect, and fast food customers don't deserve to be terrorized just because they picked the wrong burger joint...
It's both.
And that is growing up.
I think the guy who made the video doesnt get the movie, dude isnt racist or stuck in the past, a very big over simplification of the character he is a person who let his insecurities and problems ruin his life, he was always unable to see his faults and when things got bad for him instead of blaming himself who does he blame, everything and everyone. He hates his current situation and life so badly that, that hate bled over naturally into hating other things, and eventually everything. Dude was not alive in the era he was talking about so fondly, ive seen people like this with the 80s and 90s they view it fondly through their vision of it because they hate their current situation. Its just a man who let hate and his own issues consume him only to realize too late that he was his own problem the entire time.
It's society's fault, bro. You're just raised by a woman, to avoid seeing that society is a problem .
I just realized this, but I think 'D-Fens' is basically the inspiration for Frank Grimes
Never thought of that.
Frank grimes was just an average conservative groening said, i know a few grimeys, but the left wing dallas is worse usually grown watches anime and makes min wage and blames capitalism and racism for being lazy
Homer Simpson could've prevented the whole thing........
Never noticed that, but you're 100% correct I think
i think this was confirmed
"I think we have a critic."
I love this movie.
I dont believe William Foster is evil, just someone who snapped under the weight of life. Someone who was ready and willing to fight the state of the world. Also i believe your wrong on the point that he was going to kill his wife and daughter.
I think that how he had a Viseral Reaction to seeing his own blood near the Plastic Surgeon's daughter is all the proof one needs to know that the catalyst to his madness was the deprivation of a connection with his daughter. And the idea that he'd do that damage to someone else (let alone himself) nearly shocked him out of his Psychosis.
Not that the ending would have changed at the pier. The cops still would've shown up. And even if he had more ammo and shot the "Hero" the other three cops on scene I feel would've opened fired and sent him careening into the sea regardless.
Yeah, it’s a bit ambiguous but when he’s talking to the caretakers about how at the end of the day him and family would all go to sleep together in the dark, that was at least to me indicating what he may have ended up doing. But yeah he certainly isn’t evil. It’s weird cause he never actually abused his family physically and seems disturbed by the notion that he could be that way.
It was his own delusion that he was a good guy, he never was, as the restraining order and the tape of him forcing his daughter to have a good time even though it was inappropriate and made her cry, and further more he was filming the whole thing. He was making everything about himself and wanted to force his ideal scenarios on people who didn't want them.
The evidence shows he had been an asshole narcissist for a long time, this was just an inevitable conclusion to his reaction to reality. He doesn't seem to see people for who they are, but who he thinks they should be. The characters he interacts with are all exaggerated to drive home his disgust for them. Once he decides they aren't good enough he dehumanizes them to make it easier to kill them or put them in harms way.
It really rings true when thinking back to when the boomer generation were kids and how their parents treated them, not accepting them for who they were or allowing them to experience things for themselves, but pigeon holing them into what their parents expected of them or thought was the right thing. There was a double life, the one you faked to make your parents happy, and the dark truth of what you did behind closed doors or when you were away from your parents gaze, even if it wasn't bad, you felt bad for just being yourself and doing what made you happy, as many were driven to do worse things to get back at the damage their parents had done. Ultimately showing that being too involved trying to make them better only ended in disaster. Denying someone of their own identity and autonomy is not a good thing.
Long story short, he has no self-reflection, he inflicts his reality on everyone around him to the point he needs to be forced away from them. These are the repercussions to his own life long actions. And failing to realize he can't force the world to be the way he wants, he needs to accept the way things are and then try to help make things better over time, not immediately through threat of violence, and not strictly what he thinks better means, but actually better for everyone, not his plastic ideals.
@@TheBuster0926 i agree completely that the driving force behind his onslaught against society was his daughter, his demeanor did change after that scene.
@@BraxtonWages i see what your saying, plus if im not mistaken he even says that if he dies his wife and daughter get some sort of life insurance money.
I'm surprised more people don't snap in real life like Foster.
Marvin Heemeyer
Killdozer
There are literally more mass shootings per year than days per year in the US alone, plenty of people do.
they literally do
Where the term “going postal” comes from
He was even disturbed by the fact the random kid knew how to use the rocket launcher he himself was trying to shoot at the construction workers.
What makes him scary is the fact that it's something far closer to reality, many decent people just go postal with the bad reality they're living in and act in extreme ways. His feelings are understandable, his actions are not.
Fancy seeing you here.
If only we could get that message out to extremist groups like BLM, ANTIFA, etc.
@@DoggosAndJiuJitsu don't forget proud boys, oath keepers, etc
@@amtraklover oh ya definitely. While BLM and the KKK are the biggest domestic terrorist groups in the country, albeit KKK hasn’t been active for two decades, there are numerous other far less dangerous groups who sometimes push it a little far. Thank you for the honorable mentions.
no decent people don't go postal.
You've lost me here, this guy was the hero.
I think the message is also how small irritating things in life, especially people not making the effort to just be polite, respectful, courteous and just pleasing, can just slowly erode a man to his breaking point and, sometimes, all it takes is someone being nice to help these people believe in the world again.
I always felt he was in a sort of God mode. No matter the situation you would lose to him on that day. Of course, until, he let the officer win.
He didn't let him win, Adele took his gun and replaced it with the water pistol. He would have shot Prendegast first.
I don’t think he was necessarily upset with the changing racial makeup of the area. He only ever mentioned the prices, or the other people’s actions, from what I remember.
But it was absolutely his own actions that caused his downfall, even before the start of the film.
Which is why I was so confused about all the people a few years back who called Joker a “worse falling down”. Joker was a tale about how we all need to be kinder to each other, while Falling Down is one about recognizing that the world wasn’t made to serve us. They’re completely different, in terms of tone, message, and themes.
I agree, he wasn't really racist, he hated the Nazis dude, he talked to the black kids like real people and he even hated the rich old white guys on the golf course because of how they look down on people.
Falling down is more like Joker meets Office Space heh…Joker is a hard reality shown to the audience, but Falling Down could be more like a broken reality, an absurd comedy perhaps not to be taken literally… Like office space, the protagonist rejects an annoying and frustrating limited paradigm and presents the audience “what if you just rejected all of it?”
Joker, in my opinion, is a much worse king of comedy with a poorly executed political message. The message itself isn't really bad persay but the overall execution and presentation just sucks and the batman gotham lore stuff makes it even more sucky
@@Opr8rScorch Beh, Joker was a pretty contrived movie all things considered.
I was barely a teenager when this movie came out and the older I get the more I sympathize with him.
Why?
Seek help
Genuinely brother, seek help
Me too. We are a society in decay.
@@xlxfjh I don't know about him, but for me the modern society wronged me in almost every possible way, so I want it to get shot down in flames
I always thought he was always supposed to be a cautionary tale. The way his wife was scared of him and how he talked to his daughter in that home video. His wife got a restraining order against him and when he found her, he brought a gun with him. He lost his job. He talked down to wage workers. He might have voiced everyone's "inner thoughts" and frustrations but, his reactions weren't justified. He was going to be set off by something.
I wouldn’t necessarily say he is evil, but he did evil things.
The entire movie is gearing up towards a murder suicide of his family
I always thought that the villain was the government in that movie, and that he was only one of the many hapless victims.
Antagonist and Villain are not necessarily one in the same
@@crust8016 well said, brother.
The overarching villain is capitalism and the government. However, D-FENS is the villain due to his violent reaction to everything around him.
The selfishness and inconsideration of people is the antagonist. It goes for William centering all his rage on his own predicament and everyone he meets that further provokes him with their petty cruelties.
That can occur anywhere for many reasons. It takes people to solve it.
@@BobExcalibur Thank you. So many people seem to miss that he is met with hostility and even violence from almost everyone he meets. Then when he reacts with hostility, "I'm the bad guy?" D-Fens was a scapegoat for the decay of society.
I don't see him as Evil. Granted, his behavior at the mini-mart, and the Whammy Burger, were not what one would consider "normal". However, quite a few of the interactions he has with the "less than law-abiding citizens", and the Notsee sympathizer, and the truly entitled people, are completely deserved, at least to me. Angry, yes, that he is. Evil, no he is not.
Please don't tell me you can't say the "National Socialist" abbreviated term because of RUclips's politically correct bullshit...
But look more closely, in the mini-mart & Whammy Burger he first tries to engage in rational critique with the hope of a reasonable outcome. Both instances the people "in charge" dismiss him as a nothing, only then does he become overly extreme (the bat in the store, the gun in the burger joint). It is showing the dichotomy of power, one cold and controlled due to institutional norms and control, the other an individualistic and overly extreme reaction caused by years of the institutional apathy and power. As soon as DFense takes power, the institutions power absolutely crumble. I think the not so obvious point is if people collectively stand up and say ENOUGH, but peacefully and collectively, these institutions will crumble immediately. Unfortunately, due to lack of connection and empathy from fellow sufferers of the same system, people like DFense believe "what's the point" and might as well just do fuck-all. So you want to know why we have these mass shootings on the daily? This movie showed us why. When you treat people like crap, when you abuse them, exploit them, then toss them in the trash bin, those without real human connections just may figure "why not."
@@tedwojtasik8781 I don't connect him with Mass Shooters, specifically because he doesn't do that. He opens fire once in the Whammy Burger, and shoots no one, because the public, and even the Employees, are not the ones making the decisions.
William isn't doing it for Media recognition, he just wants to be treated with respect, as all people do.
Mass Shooters, on the whole it seems, do it because they are desperate for attention, and the Media gives it to them.
Notsee?
@@shrimpflea FuckRUclips will delete/shadowban comments containing the actual word I would have used concerning that ideology.
You missed the fact Foster didn't deserve the restraining order. There's a little scene where the action pauses as a cop tries to take his wife's statement and the poor cop asks like six questions to figure out what exactly this guy did to deserve a restraining order, and eventually he stops pressing her for an answer, but what comes out of the scene is that there was no reason. William wasn't a perfect man, but he didn't deserve to get a restraining order on him so he couldn't see his daughter. He didn't deserve to lose his job either, it didn't come up in the movie because it would have been obvious to your average person in the nineties, but he was a defense contractor at the end of the cold war. He was surplus to requirements. He didn't deserve to lose his job, it just happened that way. Because of all that, the movie is about injustice. Foster deals with the injustices of his situation, the people around him, how people see him because of what he's done, and only by the end, when he gives the famous 'I'm the bad guy?' line, he realizes that in his violent retribution for all the injustices he finds in the world he has commited his own set of injustices, perpetrating the cycle, and so he's disgusted with himself. He became the very agent of chaos and capricious destruction he set out to correct at every turn, and he recognizes what he does to injustices. The movie ends with him goading the old cop into shooting him, ending the injustice once and for all, and the old cop Prendergast has been his mirror this whole time. Where Foster's journey through the movie and the city is all about ending injustice wherever he sees it, Prendergast is on his last day, he's doing his best not to rock the boat, people insult him and berate him and humiliate him over nothing, he sits there and takes it. His wife, who he adores, screeches at him constantly and does not give him the respect he deserves. When he gets on the trail of this rampaging psychopath, he gains hope, whereas Foster setting out on the rampage in the first place is the end of his hope. At about the midpoint of the movie, finally Prendergast stops taking the shit thrown his way and he starts dealing with the injustices he faces in his life proactively, he comes back into his own as Foster spirals out of control. Finally, as Foster finally makes it home, Prendergast is back on the trail and he's completely in his element, he's gotten the respect he deserves from his coworkers, he's stood up to his wife's incessant nagging and he's back on a case with his partner in tow. When the two men meet, they're like the yin and yang, Foster is at the end of his tether. He's had his day, but the moment he started all this he knew it would all end this way, facing down a cop, and the avenging hero we have followed is all gone. All that's left is the broken man beneath. Prendergast started out at the bottom, about to hang up his hat and move out, on the worst day of his life, suffering humiliation at work from every corner, but by the time he comes face to face with Foster, he's been doing what he loves, he's forced people to give him the respect he's owed, and he finally has confidence and hope back in himself. Both men started their day at the lowest low. One strayed outside the law, one stayed inside it. One destroyed his life, the other renewed himself. More than Falling Down is a movie about bloodlust and trying to irrationally turning back the clock, Falling Down is to do with the worst day in a man's life, and the methods of clawing it all back. Foster snaps. We follow him throughout the movie, but we also see as he becomes the monster. Prendergast keeps his cool and keeps his head down, he just stops taking shit from people. He suceeds, and he comes out with a new lease on life. Falling Down is a movie about the worst day in a man's life, it just manages to tell Foster's story of the ultimate downfall alongside Prendergast's story of an unlikely resurgence. Neither man is the villian from the off, their circumstances are, but Foster becomes the evil in the story for his reaction to circumstances, while Prendergast survives ad thrives.
He is a genuinely sympathetic character.
I remember first seeing the cover of this movie's VHS box and thinking that Michael Douglas was playing a bizzaro parody of Hank Hill who went off the deep end!
Damnit bobbeh
That boah aint right
My dad is real life Hank Hill. White shirts all the time, jeans, glasses, brown hair, conservative, drinks beer, and only has one child that he thinks ain't right lol. I love that show.
Frank Grimes.
I've got an interesting suggestion: Sweeney Todd. Not just the man himself but the various characters too. We have multiple characters who do or add to the evil of their story.
Definitely agree
He wasn't evil he was just trying to go home 😭
He wasn't even trying to go home, he was trying to violate his restraining order and make harassing calls to his wife.
¿Evil? I think this character could be considered an anti-hero type. No one ever talks about the purity of his heart,his integrity,always trying to do 'the right thing' all his life. & doing 'every they told me to '. The cruelty,harshness,coldness etc of this world & the people around him(his wife?) wore his spirit down over the years. He didn't go out for vengeance, he just wanted to get to his daughters b-day party. Being kept from your child can also drive you over the edge. But every encounter he had was a reaction to a usually valid wrong. Idk, maybe im wrong. I love your videos so much! Thank you for the amazing content sir!