3. William "D-Fens" Foster - Falling Down
When you stop to think about it, telling a story of a man that snaps one day and goes postal is really not an easy thing to do well. Creating a character who begins the story in the frame of mind to fall off the deep end and then leading that character up to the edge without the use of too much exposition is really a pretty daunting task to accomplish effectively in the short time span of a movie. Even if you have the right story finding the person to fill the shoes of this kind of psychopath is not a walk in the park either. Michael Douglas and Joel Schumacher do a pretty good job across the board. Still you might find this film to be a little silly as Douglas' character, William Foster, known throughout most of the movie only by his car's vanity license plate "D-Fens", is shown as a man driven insane under the everyday pressure of bull crap we all have to put up with. I will admit, as great an actor as he is, Robert Duvall's role as a cop experiencing a truly dangerous situation on his last day before retirement is a little cliché. Sentiments aside I feel it's rather difficult to not at least enjoy a movie that takes a hard hitter like Douglas, gives him a machine gun, and turns him loose in the dirty streets of L.A. with a character concept that screams "go crazy with it." The scene where he holds up the fast food restaurant with the Tech-9 just to get the breakfast meal that the chain infuriately refuses to serve a minute after a certain hour is hilarious. Falling Down is successful because it makes you identify with Foster in several scenes, even though he is a deranged maniac. Minus its somewhat silly moments, the film is arguably the best of its kind ever made unless you want to count Taxi Driver and First Blood. In my humble opinion its the best film Schumacher ever made although I will always have a soft spot for The Lost Boys.