Michael Douglas Compares This to 'Falling Down'

Hmmm...true. Maybe Michael Douglas is wrong. And I'm wrong to believe him.

And anyway, "Lonely Are the Brave" is a much more moving and special film.

"It IS an interesting connection."

I disagree.

"Falling Down" is nowhere in the same league as LATB, and it's a slight on his dad's movie to mention FD in the same breath, IMO.

There's a whole elegaic resonance in LATB which is entirely missing in the sub-'Network' alienated-conformist schtick that is FD.

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First off, Squidly, if you think Foster (Michael Douglas' character in Falling Down) was ever out to terrorize his ex-wife and daughter, it's pretty clear that you hardly watched the movie at all. Pay more attention next time.


Diss, there's one major flaw in you point here. You say that Foster would have had a place in society if he hadn't had a mental breakdown, but that's simply not true. Society is what drove him to the breakdown. Granted he caused a lot of his problems, but he was breaking down because of the problems he saw in the society he lived in. It was inevitable, and therefore he never had a place in society at all. He [i]wanted[/] a place in society, but that doesn't mean that he ever really had one.


Saying that Foster isn't strong also isn't true. In some eyes, he could be viewed as the stronger character. Jack runs from his society. He could try to just get out of that town, or state, or what have you, but instead he heads for Mexico. He heads for a place that he can hide out and seek shelter from the society that rejects him. Foster on the other hand, confronts his society head on. He chooses not to flee (until the end, more on that later) but to face whatever gets between him and his goal (seeing his daughter) and to point out the flaws in the society he's rebelling against in the process. He strolls straight into his problems instead of trying to outrun them. Now on the flip side, Jack does the same thing by intentionally getting himself arrested. It's all in how you look at it.

Also, their initial goals and the end result are similar. Jack's friend is in jail, unjustly according to Jack. Because of this, Jack goes to break him out. Jack sees the change when Bondi refuses to go, and knows things are different. That's why he says "you went and grew up on me." This is where decides to flee. He can't do the time in jail (another way he can't fit into society), so he escapes.

Foster's goal is just to see his daughter on her birthday. Think of his ex-wife as the jail. Foster wants nothing more than to be with his daughter on her birthday, and even his ex, but she's got a restraining order. In his eyes it's unjust that he can't see his daughter. We also never actually see him hurt his wife or child, so he could have a point there. This plays a major role in his eventual breakdown. Anyway, he finally gets to see his daughter, but knows that after that day, there will never be a place for him in his daughters life, or society in general. This is where Foster decides to flee. His escape is death. He could lay down and be arrested, and go through the system, but he knows he just can't handle that.



If you look at it from the right angles, the characters are quite similar. The biggest difference is their character type. Jack is a timeless hero that everyone can support. Foster is the anti-hero who we can't completely support because a lot of the stuff he does is wrong, but at the same we can't help but feel some sort of empathy for him because we can see what led him to where he is.

Nope. I disagree. I can see some similarities but no connections that make any sense. There's no technology grinding down the old ways.

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