Michael Douglas plays a working-class man, pushed over the edge by the stress of modern life, family problems, work difficulties and a whole slew of mental issues. He's basically on the warpath from the beginning, storming away from a traffic standstill to find (or instigate) a frothy, furious conflict with every step. Douglas's unnamed vigilante might play as somewhat sympathetic at first, or perhaps that was the intention, but as the climax approaches and more details are filled in, he's among the last to realize that he isn't this story's hero. Robert Duvall works a parallel route as the desk-bound former police detective, trying to get through his last day, who almost unconsciously cracks the case and throws himself into harm's way.

There's a lot of subtlety and context here, which seems lost in Joel Schumacher's hammy, literal direction. Duvall's coworkers tease him relentlessly about dying before retirement, an obvious crack at the well-worn cinematic trope, but it plays as dumb and blunt rather than witty and clever. The rampaging madman is treated with strange admiration, marching through a hail of bullets like a superhero where he should have seemed detached and unhinged. I don't think Schumacher completely understood the story he was telling.

With an excellent leading performance from Douglas and a sharp, surprisingly relevant script, it's a shame this didn't turn out better than it did.