During the climactic scene in 1993’s film Falling Down (spoilers ahead), Michael Douglas’ character, William Foster — known as “D-Fens,” after his license plate — asks a haunting question in a mix of disbelief and dawning recognition: “I’m the bad guy?”
Robert Duvall’s Detective Prendergast, gun steadily trained on him, answers sympathetically: “Yeah.”
Steve Baldwin
“How’d that happen?” D-Fens asks.
At the start of the film, D-Fens doesn’t look like a “bad guy.” He’s a middle-class everyman in a white shirt and tie, stuck in a deadlocked Los Angeles traffic jam as the heat intensifies and his air conditioning fails. He’s all of us, boxed in by a gridlocked system that keeps the engine running and the stress climbing.
He abandons his vehicle in the middle of traffic and sets off on foot to attend his daughter’s birthday party. What follows is a steady unraveling as he causes increasing violence across the city, brandishes weapons, trades his office attire for military fatigues and threatens the life of his ex-wife and child.
“He’s all of us, boxed in by a gridlocked system that keeps the engine running and the stress climbing.”
The movie long has been regarded as an early portrait of the disaffected white American male — a precursor, some argue, to today’s MAGA movement. But perhaps everyone can find empathy with parts of D-Fen’s experience. After all, he is continually subjected to annoyances we all can relate to and people who treat him with rudeness and indifference.
In one darkly comedic scene, he terrorizes a fast-food restaurant after being denied breakfast a few minutes after they quit serving and instead was given a sad imitation of the burger pictured on the menu. He does what he should not do, while saying what we all wish we could.
D-Fen’s grievances are real. He recently was laid off from his job as an engineer for a defense contractor, a casualty of economic forces beyond his control.
“I did everything they told me to,” he vents. “Did you know I built missiles? I helped protect America. You should be rewarded for that. … You know, they lied to me.”
Like so many struggling financially, D-Fens feels underappreciated, overlooked and no longer “economically viable.”
As the film progresses, the narrative reveals a more complex character than your typical movie “bad guy.” He is at times tender and at other times violent.
Even his prejudices defy easy labels. Early on, he launches into racist tropes while assaulting a Korean shop owner. Later, however, he recoils in disgust when a literal neo-Nazi enthusiastically claims kinship with him.
For D-Fens, Americanism and this man’s hateful ideology do not mix. For a moment our “bad guy” becomes “good.”
Although Falling Down was intended as a critique, many audiences embraced D-Fens as a symbol of rebellion against a broken system. But by the end, the truth is unavoidable. In his zeal to fight what he believes is wrong, D-Fens terrorizes innocent people, including families with young children, leaves a path of death and destruction, and becomes a toxic threat to the loved ones he was supposed to protect.
“In trying to save America, he becomes someone America needs saving from.”
In trying to save America, he becomes someone America needs saving from.
Only at the very end does he realize it — because bad guys rarely see themselves that way in the moment. They believe their cause justifies everything.
That lesson feels uncomfortably relevant today.
As a middle-class conservative evangelical, I can identify with the legitimate grievances of many in my community.
The middle class is eroding. Immigration systems are broken. Health care costs continue to rise despite promises of affordability. Government bloat and corruption are real. Institutions that once commanded trust now inspire skepticism. Cultural norms around gender and family are shifting rapidly in ways that leave people uncomfortable and confused. And many of society’s changes have Christians questioning our own cultural relevance.
These grievances deserve to be heard. But in their zeal to address them and win the “culture war,” evangelicals and other conservatives have chosen a path that compromises the very values they once claimed to hold sacred.
In their passionate fervor to tear down broken systems, they embraced a brash, egocentric strongman — someone wholly unrepresentative of traditional Christian character — to be their D-Fens against perceived enemies. He’s a man who does what people “should not” do and says what they all wish they could.
The message became clear: Character doesn’t matter after all, and Jesus’ Beatitudes simply no longer cut it. In order to defeat an “unholy culture,” Christians resorted to pragmatic expediency while setting aside the fruit of holiness.
“Christians resorted to pragmatic expediency while setting aside the fruit of holiness.”
The consequences have been profound. Thousands have left churches, repelled by what they see as hypocrisy. Families are divided. Civil discourse has deteriorated. Truth has been sacrificed as conspiracy theories and known falsehoods are embraced in the name of winning an information war.
Winsomeness and empathy — once virtues — are now labeled “weak” or “toxic.” Immigrants and refugees, once neighbors, are recast as existential threats. Media personalities build popular platforms based on fears of “white replacement,” and extremist groups crawl out of the shadows, proclaiming, “We’re the same. I’m with you!”
From a governing perspective, the irony is stark. Those who once championed limited government now celebrate unprecedented federal intrusion into states, businesses, universities and the arts. Self-described constitutional originalists excuse routine assaults on the balance of power.
The First Amendment erodes as journalists are labeled enemies, dissenting voices punished and institutions pressured to rewrite history. The Department of Justice is openly weaponized against perceived enemies while allies are shielded from accountability — even those who engaged in violence at the Capitol to overturn an election. Simultaneously, it has worked relentlessly to shield a wealthy and powerful network of sex traffickers and pedophiles.
“The man many thought would save America has become the one America and the world might need saving from.”
In the name of efficiency, scientific research is gutted, humanitarian aid slashed and life-saving programs dismantled. Experts warn these decisions will cost millions of lives globally. Long-standing alliances that have helped preserve global stability are strained and the U.S. has threatened to invade the sovereign territory of a friendly nation.
At home, militarized forces appear in American communities — masked men who have exchanged work attire for fatigues, brandishing weapons and granted sweeping immunity. The result: Multiple reports of abuse, violations of the First and Fourth Amendments, and the on-the-spot execution of two U.S. citizens.
In short, the man many thought would save America, has become the one America and the world might need saving from.
Which brings us back to the question: “How’d that happen?”
We didn’t get here without compromising our once valued convictions — without our zealous desires to win a “war” overriding our consciences, without human pragmatism replacing God’s holiness.
D-Fens accomplished much along his journey. He got the price he wanted from the Korean shop owner, bad guys were eliminated, and the fast-food employees probably received his message. But the trauma and destruction far outweighed those “wins.”
D-Fens’s story ended in tragedy. Our nation’s doesn’t have to.
Yes, there are legitimate grievances. Yes, they must be addressed.
But to change the ending we must constantly ask ourselves, “Am I the bad guy?”
Because the answer might be “Yes.”
Steve L. Baldwin is a media producer and author who has served in ministry more than 30 years. He is the author of Rethinking God: Because God is Bigger, Closer, and More Real Than You Think, often shares his thoughts at HonestlyThinking.org, and can also be found on Facebook or Twitter.