One of the reasons Falling Down was significant for me was the site used for the main promo, overlooking Downtown. I knew it. Had it picked out for a band photo I planned to do. Then the film comes out & ruins it for us, b/c to use it then would have seemed allusive.

I've always believed the principle theme was that D-Fens's grievances were genuine: He isn't angry at the cost of soda, he's angry at the convenience store's price gouging; fast food establishments subvert the customer into an employee with their rules & inability/unwillingness to accommodate; Forrests's Neo-Nazi really is evil; minding his own business he's accosted by gang members who later provide him with the arsenal after a botched attempt to gun him down in the street, harming bystanders instead; his wife admits to the cops that although she has a restraining order against him he's never really been violent to them; the Caltrans worker admits there's nothing wrong with the road, they just have to tear it up to justify their annual budget.

Sure, "I'm the bad guy?" is the key epiphany. But recall that Duvall's character agrees that he's been lied to, misled. "They lie to everybody!" he tells D-Fens. "There's nothing special about you." And that, I think, is another key revelation. The system is every bit as corrupt, mismanaged & mendacious as D-Fens believes. It's how we respond to its peccadillos that matters.

Recall how, early on, both Duvall's cop & D-Fens are caught in the same traffic jam, but have entirely different reactions. Duvall looks up at the billboard of a woman with immense cleavage in which a tagger has drawn the face of a drowning man calling 'Help!" & he's momentarily amused, while D-Fens grows increasingly outraged by essentially the same surroundings.