"Fight Club" is an absolutely amazing movie, as subversive as it gets. It's a wonder it ever got made, especially by a major studio. This masterpiece is a picture that screams for people to wake up and revolt against the absurdity of modern life. Of course it's gathering controversy. It's anti-capitalism, borderline nihilistic and downright anarchist, for sure. Some might even say that it's anti-God, and not quite without evidence. But ain't that what movies are about? Art is supposed to make you think, to push you to react. It shouldn't leave you indifferent. These days everyone blames movies for violence in our society. Don't stop selling guns to kids (that's big money), but turn every movie into Disney sap to shut people up for a while. Maybe they'll keep ignoring that Nike is exploiting kids to pay Michael Jordan, that automobile moguls will recall cars only if it'll cost less than settling malfunction cases out of court, that you gotta kill half-extinct species of whales to make classy perfume... If we stop making movies with violence just in case some moron might screw up (which he would probably have done anyway), cinema will become a travesty of reality, and we'll be deprived of many potential masterpieces. If violence had never been in movies, there would have been no "A Clockwork Orange" or "Taxi Driver"; we're talking about some of the greatest movies ever made!
"Fight Club" revolves around an unnamed Narrator, a disillusioned office worker who's so fed up with his routine life that he can't even sleep anymore. He's trying to find satisfaction in shopping, turning his crummy apartment into an Ikea catalog spread, but it's just so... Urgh. The only way he gets to connect with other people is by going to self-help groups for people with testicular cancer, brain parasites or whatever. It seems people really care about you only if they think you're gonna die. That's in one of these meetings that he meets Marla Singer,the nymphomaniac, a chain-smoking Goth mermaid who hangs in these sessions because it's cheaper than the movies and there's free coffee. Suddenly, our Narrator can't let go anymore by crying in the arms of other men, because the presence of another faker keeps reminding him he's one too. This ain't the last he'll see of Marla. She's about to influence drastically his life, but not nearly as much as Tyler Durden, an intriguing fellow who's everything he's not. Confident and charismatic, Tyler is an all-out anarchist who refuses to submit to the compromises of modern life. He splices frames of erected penises into family films when he works as a projectionist, pees in the soup when he's a waiter. And he makes soap, too.
The Narrator finds himself intensely driven to Tyler and his radical thinking. They find that the best way to feel alive might be by beating the living shit out of each other. Soon, other people join in. Lot of people. Fight clubs multiply, all over the nation. Seems today's emasculated men are relieved to finally find a venue to unleash their frustration. They're so numbed by their lives that they're desperate to feel something, anything. Even if it means going at it in underground boxing clubs. Tyler takes it to the next phase by turning his fight clubs into units of Project Mayhem. And then it gets weird. Yeah, weirder than what you saw so far! I really can't tell you anymore about the plot (even though the trailer gives away a lot more, as do some critics). The first rule of fight club is: You don't talk about fight club. The second rule of fight club is: You don't talk about fight club.
The film's protagonist and narrator is played by Edward Norton, who goes beyond anything he's done. There is so much nuance and intelligence in his unpredictable, always compelling performance. Brad Pitt is another very interesting actor, and he truly gives everything he's got as Tyler Durden. Believe me, Tyler will crawl under your skin and stay there. I can hardly think of a more fascinating movie character. What's the most disturbing about Tyler and the film in general is how it seduces you with its nihilistic philosophy, how it makes you relate to, understand and admire Tyler Durden... And then before you know it, you realize that you would have done anything, no matter how immoral and depraved, just because you had so much faith in him.
The movie is a frightening look at how any "normal" person could turn into a member of an extremist group. It shows how seductive anarchy and marginality can be at first, but it's also responsible enough to also show how these things often get out of hand and go too far. This movie makes you understand why some turn into terrorists, why some take part in a death cult, why Germans followed blindly Hitler and committed some of the most atrocious acts in history. This is a movie that should be shown to everyone in schools to be discussed. This is a movie as powerful and thought provoking as "Do the Right Thing" or "Schindler's List". And it's a comedy, too. One of the first things people too shaken by the issues of the film might talk about to lighten the mood might be the casting of rock star Meatloaf as Big Bob, a former bodybuilder who took so much steroids that he grew huge breasts and was deprived of his balls (literally). Or how shocking to see Helena Bonham Carter acting without wearing a corset, turning herself into the trashy Marla. Kudos to Carter for achieving to make Marla somehow endearing.
The film was adapted by newcomer Jim Uhls from the novel by Chuck Palahniuk(I have this novel). The book is incredibly rich and inventive: it's almost scientific in its details. Can the movie live up to it? Astonishingly, yes. Director David Fincher found the way to communicate through images and sound the vibe Palahniuk sent through words. This ain't your middle of the road studio picture. The film might seem difficult to some, because it's so packed with ideas and doesn't dumb down or sugar coat them. It has the bleak look of decay and filth also found in Fincher's previous films, but it also has a refreshing playfulness. I saw "Fight Club" 12-13 times , and I got to notice tons of minute details each time. Like how there's subliminal images of Tyler in the first act.
I also really like the film's non-linear structure, how it constantly jumps back and forth in time and space, like a novel actually. The editing is particularly audacious and inventive. Let's not forget the Dust Brothers: finally, a film score that sounds truly modern instead of sticking to the same tired faux-Wagner strings and brass. Their electronic, loop and sample woven, genre blending music makes the film even more electrifying. "Fight Club" is pure, unrestrained, riveting filmmaking. And if you think that "The Sixth Sense" had a fall-off-your-seat climactic twist, wait till you see what Palahniuk concocted. More than just a surprise, it's a revelation that puts everything else in perspective, and makes it even scarier. The sequence that follows is therefore even more thrilling, as... Well, you'll see. Oh, and you gotta love the final shot, a wonderfully ironic anti-happy end perfectly edited to the Pixies' Where is My Mind.(I have this song)
"Fight Club" burns ideas in your brain, thrills you with its fights, makes you laugh and uses the art of filmmaking in a whole new way. This is one for the ages. In Fight Club we trust.
