Movie Review : Fight Club (1999)

Edward Norton plays a miserable urban loner who is overflowing with anguish. In a caustic social satire discourse, he depicts his environment. His job and life are driving him insane. He attends 12-step groups to cope with his grief, where he may hug people who are less fortunate than himself and find catharsis in their suffering. The first group he attends is for post-surgical testicular cancer patients, which is ironic given that the entire film is about people frightened of losing their cojones.

Such early scenes have a lovely cheeky tone to them, and they're narrated by Norton's character in a manner similar to Nathanael West's in Miss Lonelyhearts. For reasons that will become evident later, he is only known as the Narrator. When a catastrophe occurs, the gatherings act as a tranquilizer, and his existence is hardly bearable: At meetings, he soon discovers Marla (Helena Bonham Carter). She, like him, is a "tourist" who isn't hooked to anything but meetings. She ruins the experience for him. He's well aware that he's a liar, but he wants to think that everyone else's suffering is genuine.

He has another pivotal contact on an aircraft with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a man whose demeanor breaks through the fog. Tyler appears to be able to see directly into the Narrator's soul, and when the Narrator's high-rise apartment catches fire, he seeks refuge from Tyler. He receives a lot more than that. He gets in on the ground floor of Fight Club, a secret club of men who meet to beat each other to death in the pursuit of freedom and self-realization.

Around this time, the film ceases being sharp, ferocious, and humorous and instead devolves into some of the most violent, unrelenting, and unending violence ever shot. Despite the fact that most people know that if you strike someone hard enough with an ungloved hand, you'll break their bones, the guys in "Fight Club" have steel fists and pound each other as the sound effects guys beat the crap out of Naugahyde sofas with Ping-Pong paddles. Later in the film, the plot twists still again. Call it the Keyser Soze syndrome, but many modern filmmakers seem dissatisfied until they can add concluding moments that redefine the truth of all that has gone before.

What's the big deal? It's about breaking free from the constraints of contemporary life, which cage and emasculate males, according to Durden. Fight Club members discover freedom by being willing to give and take pain, as well as risk death. Durden must watch movies like "Crash" (1997) as if they were cartoons. He's a mysterious, captivating character who can motivate a legion of men in major cities to descend into the Fight Club's hidden cellars and beat one other up.

The precise elements of his ultimate scheme are only gradually exposed. Is Tyler Durden a true man-leader with a sound philosophy? "We're only free to do anything once we've lost everything," he adds, sounding like a man who stumbled over the Nietzsche exhibit on his way to Borders' coffee shop. He has no helpful truths, in my opinion. He's a bully, a combination of Werner Erhard and S & M, a leather club owner without the decor. Fight Club members do not get stronger or more free as a result of their involvement; instead, they are reduced to pitiful cultists. Provide them with black clothes and register them as skinheads. The movie utilizes the question of whether Durden symbolizes secret facets of the masculine psyche as a loophole—but it can't get out of it since "Fight Club" is about the action, not the denouement.

Of course, "Fight Club" does not endorse Durden's viewpoint. It's a cautionary tale, I suppose; one of my favorite critics thinks it "makes a telling point about man's bestial nature and what might happen when the numbing effects of day-to-day monotony force people to go a bit insane." I believe that the numbing effects of films like these are what drives people insane. Although sophisticates will be able to justify the film as an argument against the conduct depicted, I believe that the public will like the behavior but not the argument. They'll almost certainly buy tickets since they'll be able to witness Pitt and Norton slugging it out;Many more people will leave this film in a rage than will leave it debating Tyler Durden's moral theory. In films like these, the pictures speak for themselves, and it takes a lot of narration (or Narration) to counteract them.

The performers already put in a lot of effort. Helena Bonham Carter plays a feisty chain-smoking hellcat who is probably enraged because none of the guys think having sex with her is as much fun as a broken nose. Norton and Pitt go through almost as much physical suffering in this film as Demi Moore did in "G.I. Jane," and Helena Bonham Carter plays a feisty chain-smoking hellcat who is probably enraged because none of the guys think having When you see talented performers in a production like this, you have to wonder whether they chose canyoneering as an alternative.

David Fincher directed the film, which was written by Jim Uhls, who adapted Chuck Palahniuk's novel. In many respects, it's similar to David Fincher's 1997 film "The Game," with the brutality ramped up for adolescent guys of all ages. That film was also about a trial in which a man drowning in capitalism (Michael Douglas) has the rug ripped out from under him and must learn to fight for survival. I enjoyed "The Game" far more than "Fight Club" because it was truly about the concept, but "Fight Clubmessage "'s is like strewn Socially Redeeming Content thrown to the screaming crowd.

David Fincher is an excellent director (his work includes "Alien 3," one of the best-looking bad movies I have ever seen, and "Seven," the grisly and intelligent thriller). He seemed to be putting himself to the test with "Fight Club"—how much over the top can he go? The film is visceral and hard-edged, with sarcasm and criticism layered above and under the action. It might have been a wonderful picture if it had continued in the vein explored in the first act. However, the second act is pandering, and the third act is deception, and whatever Fincher's point is, most viewers will not grasp it. "Fight Club" is a high-octane thrill coaster disguised as philosophy.

Since "Death Wish," a celebration of violence in which the protagonists write themselves a permission to drink, smoke, screw, and beat one other up, "Fight Club" is the most openly and joyously fascist big-star film.