William Foster

"I'm going home."

- William Foster in the opening scene



William Foster (A.K.A Bill and D-Fens) is the main character of Falling Down (1993). He was played by Michael Douglas.

Prior to the events of the movie, he was married to his wife Elizabeth "Beth" Trevino. They also had a daughter by the name of Adele. One day, prior to their divorce while they were filming their home video of their daughter on her birthday, Foster demands to Beth to put their daughter on the toy horse. Later on that same day, Beth (who probably had a black eye when Foster punched her) tells Foster that she is going to report him to the court. Foster had a restraining order against him, thereby preventing him from harming his wife again. And on the same week, Foster was fired possibly because of his misbehavior.

About a month after he was fired, the umemployed defense worker gets caught in the Los Angeles traffic jam in the heatwave. After waiting for several minutes, he finally gives up and abandons his car in the traffic. After running out of coins needed to make a phone call, he goes to a convenience store and attempts to ask for change. But Mr. Lee won't unless he buys an item. Foster places a can of soda on the counter, and the Korean shopkeeper said that the soda costs 85 cents. Foster then complains about the high prices, and Lee grabs his baseball bat. Both have a short scuffle before Foster stomps Lee in the stomach. He begins smashing up the store, every time the shopkeeper talks about prices of the items. He leaves the shop in ruins after the shopkeeper said that the can of soda costs 50 cents before the price change.

At the hill where there are Hispanic gang activity, Foster was accosted by two gang members, who accuses him of trespassing. When the two holds him at knifepoint and demands that he hands over the briefcase, Foster fights back with a baseball bat he got from the convenience store. Throwing away the bat as he yells at them "I'm going home!", Foster then picks up a butterfly knife, which is dropped from one of the gang member earlier.

Later on, as Foster calls his ex-wife on the pay phone, the two gang members from earlier spotted him while they were driving their car with two other friends. They attempts to kill him in a drive-by shooting, but misses and only hit several passer-bys (non fatally) in the process. They vehicle gets into an accident, and Foster walks up to the same gang member earlier, who was injured in the car crash. As the surviving gang member begs for his life, Foster spares him by only shooting him in the leg. He walks away with the gym bag full of automatic guns after telling the victim to take some shooting lessons.

In the next scene, Foster tries to get onto a bus, but to no avail. He then walks the other way, but a nearby construction worker said that the road is closed.

Foster then encounters a panhandler who begs him for money. After much botherment from the latter, he gives the briefcase to the panhandler. The panhandler was disappointed as the briefcase only contains a sandwich and an apple.

At the Whammy Burger restaurant, Foster talks to Sheila about wanting breakfast, only to be told that the restaurant stopped serving breakfast at about five minutes after 11.30, and was changed to the lunch menu. Foster attempts to get Rick, the manager, to serve him breakfast, but to no avail. He then pulls out a submachine gun and demand his breakfast, but he accidentally fires in the ceiling and means no harm. Foster then changes his mind and asks for lunch. However, the burger he was served was not exactly the same as the picture in the menu.

Foster then bought himself a snowglobe as a gift to his daughter. He then encounters a man outside the building, holding up a sign saying "Not Economically Viable". The police then takes said person away into a police car. The arrested man tells Foster not to forget him.

Foster then wents to a phone booth and calls his ex-wife again. However, an impatient man accuses him of taking too long. In retaliation, he shoots down the phone booth so that no one would use it.

Foster then stops at the army surplus store to buy himself a new pair of shoes. The owner, by the name of Nick, offers him a pair of boots. Foster hides in the fitting room, just as Nick was talking to Detective Sandra Torres, who was looking for a man in his late 40s, with a white shirt and a tie and carrying a gym bag. After Torres leave, Nick congratulate Foster for shooting up the restaurant, having heard about said incident in there. Foster was disapproving of the store owner's racism and declines using the rocket launcher. The man then pull out his gun and orders him to lean on the counter. As he searches Foster's gym bag, he throws away the snowglobe meant as a gift to Foster's daughter. As the man attempts to place Foster in handcuffs, Foster then takes out a butterfly knife from earlier and stabs his attacker on the shoulder, then shoots and kills the latter with the man's own gun as he stares into the mirror.

Foster then changes into army fatigues after killing said store owner. He proclaimed to Beth that he "passed the point of no return" as he called her the fifth time. He felt that the journey to her home is better completed than to go back to the beginning. He tries to get Beth to put his daughter on the phone, but she hang up on him.

Foster then encounter one of the men of the road repair crew, and argues with him about not knowing whether the street went wrong or not. Foster then pull up his jacket, and the construction worker was scared at the sight of the gun in Foster's trousers. He admitted that there is nothing wrong. Foster then takes out a rocket launcher, scaring the man away. Foster struggles to use the rocket launcher, until a young boy helps him on how to use it. He accidentally fires the rocket launcher, hitting the mobile crane in the distance.

Foster then walks across the golf course. There were two golfers in the distance in front of him, Frank and Jim. Frank yells out to Foster to get off the golf course, just as Jim warns him that he doesn't like the look of the man walking towards them. Frank attempts to strike Foster with a golf ball. Foster then takes out his shotgun and began ranting about how the field should have children playing around, families having picnics or used as a zoo. He shoots a nearby golf cart, causing it to roll down the hill, and at the same time, causing Frank to have a heart attack. The golf cart containing Frank's medications splashes into the pond, and Foster tells the elderly golfer whether it is worth it to "die wearing that stupid little hat".

Foster then climbing over the barbed wired fence and into the caretaker's household, ranting to the nearby family barbequeing at the swimming pool about amusing themselves seeing innocent people being hurted. He then ushers them into the shelter just as he hears police sirens. As Foster have a conversation with the family after he calmed down, he realises that the young girl he was holding in her hand was bleeding, but actually, the blood came from his cut hand earlier. The father begs to be taken hostage instead of his children, but Foster have no intention of harming them. He then tells a story about how he and his familiy will be "sleeping together in the dark", possibly implicates that he was about to hurt his ex-wife and daughter.

Foster then arrived at Beth's house after calling for the sixth and final time, but his ex-wife had already fled with Adele. He then watches his home videos of his past marriage, and realises that in one of them, he was yelling at his wife to put their daughter on the toy horse. He looked outside the window and saw his ex-wife and daughter running to the Venice Pier. But Sergeant Martin Prendergast and Torres arrived before he could get out. He shoots Torres on his way out and chases down his ex-wife and daughter. Adele was happy to see him but Beth was still afraid, just as Foster forcefully kisses her. He then takes out his gun and scares away the onlookers.

While Foster was hugging his daughter, Prendergast happens to witness the scene. Prendergast then gives his cup of popcorn to Foster's daughter, who then offers some to her father. With Foster distracted, his ex-wife threws his gun away into the sea and ran away again with her daughter. Prendergast tells Foster that he is meeting a couple of police officers and refers to them as the "good guys". Foster then realises that what he did throughout the day makes him the "bad guy". He tries to talk to Prendergast that he helps to build missiles, instead of being rewarded, the people give it to the plastic surgeons, and that he was lied to. The detective acknowledges Foster's problem, but that doesn't "give you any special right to do what you did today". Foster then wishes for a duel between himself and Prendergast. He then places his hand in his pocket, commiting suicide by cop just as the detective shot him. Turns out that the weapon he pulled out is actually a water gun, the same toy that Beth brought for Adele earlier. Foster warns the detective that "I would've gotcha", before falling dead into the ocean. The final shot of the movie is of Foster's home video of his marriage.