The 1993 film "Falling Down" depicts an unemployed defense worker who becomes frustrated with society and unleashes this frustration on the community from Los Angeles. The film follows William through his destruction as well as the impact of his actions on the other characters in the film. It becomes clear that the events and characters in the film are ideal illustrations of criminological theories of anomie and social control. Anomie is characterized as a feeling of absence of norms. This results from a breakdown of social norms and without these norms to guide an individual, they are unable to find their place in society or adapt to the constant changes in life. The consequence is that the individual feels a feeling of dissatisfaction, frustration, conflict and ultimately deviance. Robert Merton discusses the five ways in which the individual adapts to tension by limiting socially approved goals and means. These five modes of adaptation include conformity, innovation, ritualism, withdrawal and rebellion. In Falling Down, different characters may be linked to one or more of these five adaptations. The first of these modes is conformity, which means that for the individual, the focus on goals and means is maintained even though he or she recognizes that the means are limited. In the film's opening scene, William "D-Fens" Foster can be seen sitting in traffic, visibly upset by the situation. Later, the viewer learns that William lost his job a month earlier and that he leaves for Los Angeles every day in search of work. Her goal is to find a job that can support herself and her family. The means to achieve this are clearly limited. All William can do is search the classified ads in the middle of a paper... when the grocery store owner called him a thief, William began to lose faith in the system. After that, there was the Nazi surplus store owner who thought the two looked so much alike, the restaurant who wouldn't give him breakfast because he was three minutes late, the plastic surgeon who made far more money than he did saving lives, and highway construction which was the result of greed, not necessity. By watching the film and understanding the concepts of these two theories, it becomes evident that William was in a state of anomie and used all five modes of adaptation in order to adapt to his stock. William's ability to enter the four delinquent modes of adaptation, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion was the result of the breakdown of his social bonds, his attachment, his involvement, his commitment and of his beliefs..