History Film / FallingDown

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Prendergast's boss Captain Yardley dislikes him because he took a desk job and because he doesn't curse. Towards the end, Prendergast tells the Captain to go [[PrecisionFStrike fuck himself]] on national television. After getting over his initial shock, the Captain cracks a smile since the man he believed to be craven had the balls to do that.

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: Prendergast's boss Captain Yardley dislikes him because he took a desk job and because he doesn't curse. Towards the end, Prendergast tells the Captain to go fuck himself on national television. After getting over his initial shock, the Captain cracks a smile since the man he believed to be craven had the balls to do that.

** The aggressive panhandler who tries to get Foster to give him some money just keeps on telling these, first claiming to have been stranded because he drove down to LA from Santa Barbara to visit a friend who owed him money but never showed up forcing him to sleep in his car, but when Foster asks to see his driver's license or car registration he can produce neither. He then claims to be a Vietnam vet, and when Foster points out he's too young switches to claiming to be a Gulf War vet, before finally claiming he hasn't eaten in days...while holding a sandwich he'd been eating throughout this entire interaction.

* UngratefulBastard: The homeless panhandler to whom Foster gives his briefcase just to shut him up. When the panhandler finds that there's nothing inside but a sandwich lunch, he calls Foster a son of a bitch and throws the apple at him, despite saying the [[BlatantLies he was hungry]] and could sell the briefcase to buy more food.

* UngratefulBastard: Foster eventually gives the homeless panhandler his briefcase just to shut him up. When the panhandler finds that there's nothing inside but a sandwich lunch, he calls Foster a son of a bitch and throws the apple at him, despite saying the [[BlatantLies he was hungry]] and could sell the briefcase to buy more food.

* BlatantLies: The aggressive panhandler who tries to get Foster to give him some money just keeps on telling these, first claiming to have been stranded because he drove down to LA from Santa Barbara to visit a friend who owed him money but never showed up forcing him to sleep in his car, but when Foster asks to see his driver's license or car registration he can produce neither. He then claims to be a Vietnam vet, and when Foster points out he's too young switches to claiming to be a Gulf War vet, before finally claiming he hasn't eaten in days...while holding a sandwich he'd been eating throughout this entire interaction.

-->'''Angie''': He looked like you, but [he's] taller and had hair
-->'''Detective Jones''': [with sarcasm] Good description, Angie!

-->'''Captain Yardley:''' ''[holds up his own gym bag]'' Prendergast, what's this?\\

* WorldOfJerkass: Prendergast, Sandra, Beth, and Adele aside, most of the characters in this film are deeply unpleasant people. Bill Foster was an emotionally abusive husband to Beth and scared her so much that she slapped a restraining order on him. The people he encounters on his journey across the city include GangBangers, a Neo Nazi, a PhonyVeteran looking to mooch off him, a greedy shop owner who won't break a bill for a man in need and overcharges for everything in his store, a restaurant manager who won't give him a breakfast order despite the fact that breakfast only ended a minute prior and they still have breakfast meals warmed and ready to serve, a construction crew screwing up the roads for no reason other than justifying their inflated budget, and a golfer who intentionally attempts to hit him with a golf ball. Even some of Prendergast's colleagues at the LAPD are pricks, especially his [[DaChief captain]] and Sandra's new partner.

* AnAesop: GoingPostal is not a good way to deal with life.
** Don’t be rude to people. Pretty much every single one of Foster’s outbursts in the movie is a result of people being rude to him.

** Insulting Prendergast's wife. For all her issues, he still loves her enough to defend her from anyone who thinks badly of her.

* BlackComedy: Foster shooting an elderly golfer's golf cart and inducing a heart attack. The pills are in the golf cart, which rolls into a lake.

* {{Eagleland}}: Foster is an AngryWhiteMan formerly employed at an American arms company that makes missiles for the government, believes in American Exceptionalism and sees TheSixties as TheGoodOldDays. He tells an immigrant with a thick accent that he should learn English and assumes that America gives his country money. He also takes offense to a neonazi idolizing him and gives him a lecture on civil rights, calling himself "an American" and drawing a line between the two.

* ExtremeDoormat: Prendergast is henpecked at home by a needy and probably mentally ill wife who forced him to take a degrading desk job with the police department. He's also treated with ridicule and open contempt by his police chief and coworkers because they think he's a coward for working behind a desk. He tolerates all of the above stoically until the Foster case lands in his lap.

* {{Foil}}: Foster to Prendergast. Both are or have been servants (Foster was in the military and Prendergast is a sergeant) who receive little to no overt appreciation for their service, least of all from their superiors. However, while Foster lets his anger get the best of him, cutting him off from his (ex-)wife and child and dragging him deeper and deeper into an abyss of rage, Prendergast focuses on the greater good he provides, eventually stands up to those who belittled him, earning their respect, and ultimately reaffirms his love for his wife.

* SuspectIsHatless: After interviewing Angie, the best description Prendergast can come up with for the mysterious D-FENS is that he's a middle-aged white man wearing a white shirt and tie and carrying a gym bag. Captain Yardley finds this...less than helpful:

* TookALevelInBadass: Bill's evolution from a normal everyday man into a [[Film/TaxiDriver Travis Bickle]]-like VigilanteMan.

* CrapsackWorld: {{Deconstructed|Trope}}, thanks in no small part to downtown Los Angeles less than a year after the big 1992 riots. The movie is an exploration of this concept's presence in the real world, in a lot of ways.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Every {{Jerkass}} that Foster meets.

* AllPartOfTheShow: When Foster first pulls out the bazooka, a group of bystanderse mistake it for a movie shoot.

* BadassBookworm: Foster

* CreatorCameo: Ebbe Roe Smith has a bit role as a man on the freeway.

-->'''Bill:''' I'm the bad guy? How did that happen? I did everything they told me to. Did you know I build missiles? I help to protect America. You should be rewarded for that. Instead, they give it to the plastic surgeon. They lied to me.\\
'''Sergeant Pendergast:''' Is that what this is about? You're angry because you got lied to? Is that why my chicken dinner is drying out in the oven? Listen, pal, they lie to everyone. They lie to the fish. But that doesn't give you any special right to do what you did today.

* HellishLA: Traffic, heat waves, rich fat cats, apathetic service workers, homeless bums with made-up sob stories, neo-Nazis, gangbangers, the defense jobs pulling out now that the Cold War is over... welcome to Los Angeles in 1992.

* AsianStoreOwner: Whose place gets trashed after Bill tries to make change for the phone.

* {{Eagleland}}: Foster is an AngryWhiteMan formerly employed at an American arms company that makes missiles for the government, believes in American Exceptionalism and sees TheSixties as TheGoodOldDays. He tells an immigrant with a thick accent that he should learn proper English and assumes that America gives money to his country. He also takes offense to a neonazi idolizing him and gives him a lecture on civil rights, calling himself "an American" and drawing a line between the two.

* {{Eagleland}}: Foster is an AngryWhiteMan formerly employed at an American arms company that makes missiles for the government, believes in American Exceptionalism and sees TheSixties as TheGoodOldDays. He tells an immigrant with a thick accent that he should learn proper English and assumes that America gives money to his country. He also takes offense to a neonazi idolizing him and gives him a lecture on civil rights, calling himself an "American" and drawing a line between the two.

* {{Eagleland}}: Foster is an AngryWhiteMan formerly employed at an American arms company that makes missiles for the government, who believes in American Exceptionalism and sees TheSixties as TheGoodOldDays. He tells an immigrant with a thick accent that he should learn proper English and assumes that America gives money to his country. He also takes offense to a neonazi idolizing him and gives him a lecture on civil rights, calling himself an "American" and drawing a line between the two.

* {{Eagleland}}: Foster is an AngryWhiteMan formerly employed at an American arms company that makes missiles for the government, who believes in American Exceptionalism and sees TheSixties as TheGoodOldDays. He tells an immigrant with a thick accent that he should learn proper English and assumes that America gives money to his country. He also takes offense to a neonazi idolizing him and gives him a lecture on civil rights, calling himselg an "American" and drawing a line between the two.

* BlatantLies: the aggressive panhandler who tries to get Foster to give him some money just keeps on telling these, first claiming to have been stranded because he drove down to LA from Santa Barbara to visit a friend who owed him money but never showed up forcing him to sleep in his car, but when Foster asks to see his driver's license or car registration he can produce neither. He then claims to be a Vietnam vet, and when Foster points out he's too young switches to claiming to be a Gulf War vet, before finally claiming he hasn't eaten in days...while holding a sandwich he'd been eating throughout this entire interaction.

** The gangbangers act like teenage bullies: attacking what they see as a weak person only to chicken out when they see Foster can defend hmself, throwing a furious tantrum over someone having the audacity to fight back, and recklessly firing guns without concern for the innocent people they hurt. When Foster finds one of the gangbangers on the ground after their car crashed, he's whimpering like a little baby.

** The Neo-Nazi is nasty little bully, happily throwing "faggot" around like a hypermasculine teenager.

** The old golfer throws a fit, yells at his companion, and nearly hits D-FENS with a golf ball just because he couldn't stand to have his golf game interrupted for a few minutes.

* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: D-FENS, in a strange example where nobody in the film calls him this but the closing credits do.

* RevengeIsNotJustice: Deconstructed. [[spoiler: Foster's rampage is caused by stress revolving around the loss of his job, marriage, and access to his child, and the general degradation of modern society. It gradually gets more dangerous and destructive. He busts up a shop because the owner was rude to him and all his merchandise was offensively overpriced, he attacks some thugs for trying to rob him and subsequently drive-by-shoot him, he lets an angry old man die from a heart attack after trying to hit him with a golf ball just because he was passing through the golf course, destroys a road to give a wasteful construction crew something to ''really'' fix, he kills a man for breaking his daughter's birthday gift and trying to turn him into the police, and Prendergast believes he might be planning to kill his ex-wife, daughter, and himself. Sergeant Prendergast empathizes with him because he lost his daughter to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but he rejects Foster's excuse because none of these things gave him the right to go on a rampage.]]

-->'''Captain Yardley:''' [Holds up his own gym bag] Prendergast, what's this?
-->'''Prendergast:''' A gym bag.
-->'''Captain Yardley:''' Does this mean you're putting me under arrest?