ows up a street construction project with a bazooka type weapon. He commits a murder when he kills the Nazi. Other than these felonies, most of his crimes come under the heading of trespassing and the like.
The behavior of D-Fens, as the character in the movie is known, is explained in the film in terms of a mixture of urban angst brought about by overcrowded conditions, excessive crime, a social-welfare system out of control, and the intrusion of illegal aliens into the social fabric. In addition, the economic conditions that prevail at the present time are blamed--D-Fens has lost his job in a defense plant because of layoffs. He has also been under considerable stress because of the breakup of his marriage. The traffic, the heat, and the stress he was already under have pushed him over the edge, and though the policeman who tries to arrest him sees him as a decent man, as indeed someone he himself might be had circumstances been different, the policeman has to shoot him because he will not surrender. D-Fens sees the world as changing too fast for him. He thinks all that he once held dear is either gone or no longer believed in, and he would, rather be dead.
Different theorists of criminal and aberrant behavior would ascribe different reasons to the behavior exhibited by D-Fens in this film. Two such approaches are psychoanalytic theory and social learning theory, each of which explains aggression as a developmental matter, but from very different perspectives. Freudian psychoanalytic theory refers to innate drives which come into conflict at different ages in the life cycle, and the way these conflicts are resolved in childhood determines how they are manifested in adult behavior. Social learning theory emphasizes learning and the achievement of a sense of self-efficacy in childhood. Aggression is not innate but learned in the latter view. Aggressive behavior itself generally develops in the latter view through obs...