One of the most brutally honest mainstream films about mental illness that you're ever likely to see

Rating: Null/10 (21 May 2010)

Based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club explores the darker side of mental instability in the form of a dark comedy. The film tells the rather unsettling story of an insomnia stricken man, played by Edward Norton. His life changed one day when he meets a mysterious soap maker named Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) and, after his apartment room is blown up along with all of his belongings and the little that remains of his personal life, they became inspired to co-create a seedy underground club in which men are invited to attend and to pummel on each other to their heart's content as a form of physical therapy as well as an advanced form of personal male-bonding. Things get complex when a female drifter named Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) who inadvertently gets involved in the mentally deteriorated world that these two men share. Things only get worse when Tyler decides to take the club out onto the streets and then into their homes and into the lives of more political and respected people.
As technically talented as Fincher is, what I admire most about the film is how he doesn't let the visuals tell the story. The sarcastic, bitter, angry narration of Edward Norton that plays over the events helps a lot in driving the atmosphere of the film into it's audience, but it also adds to the humor of the film. Is the film a satire? Yes. Then why the sly, cool tone, the clever dialogue, and the slick visuals? Well, to me it all seemed very forced and over-the-top. Nobody in the real world talks like these characters, and it seems pretty obvious that the film is self-aware. You can tell in the sarcastic narration. I think that people may likely forget that we're watching the story unfold from the perspective of someone who is obviously crazy. Every person in this film is crazy in one way or another. What makes the film so bizarre is the fact the thoughts of the main character make sense in the sense that they have rationale to them. The physical appearance of the main character slowly grows worse and worse while the characters around him grow more positive, more open-minded, and more like he was at the start. What makes this so funny is the fact that the methods these characters use to make themselves happier are so completely irrational and ridiculous. Not to ruin the plot, but when it comes to illegal acts of vandalism involving public property being destroyed, there comes a point where politics don't seem so important in retrospect since we live in such an interesting and advanced time in the world today.
Looking at this film ten years later, it still has just as much power as it did in 1999 or 2000 or whenever it was when people decided to start watching it. As I said before, David Fincher is a technical talent. His films often hold an incredible amount of visual energy, and Fight Club is no different. The performances are excellent. Edward Norton's performance here is one of his best, as is Helena Bonham Carter. As for Brad Pitt, he does exactly what the role requires from him and kudos to his for being such a good sport for being in this film. The music in this film works equally as well. It's very dirty, industrial, and overbearing, much like the film itself. The film just has a tremendous spirit, though I can't say that I actually enjoy watching it. It's full of blood and guts from beginning to end, it's often very ugly to look at, and the film feels a little too dirty in that way that makes you want to shower. This is also a very very homo-erotic film, not just in the fight scenes but also in the way the male characters act around and toward each other. I can't say that I'm anywhere near as infatuated with it as I was when I was in high school, where any film that tried new things seemed revolutionary and brilliant, and just as well, this film makes it very difficult to take Brad Pitt seriously in most of his other films. The fight scenes in this film are also excellently choreographed and the gore effects in these scenes are wonderfully done. The final shot of the film may, at once, be considered by some to be an amazing and rebellious shot, but I laugh just thinking about it due to another very brief image in one frame of the shot that occurs just as the credits are appearing.
So overall, Fight Club is still an entertaining film. It's funny, it's dark, and it provides a very honest depiction of mental illness that very few films have the balls to explore. The film has developed a strange cult following, reminiscent of the cult audience surrounding American Psycho. These people seem to feel that these two films contain deep philosophical messages about the nature of humanity, but they definitely don't. I don't think the characters in Fight Club should be taken completely seriously and I'm astounded that anyone even could take them seriously. It's like saying that Sonny in Dog Day Afternoon was right to rob the bank and that the police were all wrong. Both sides made mistakes and both sides learned things, but that doesn't change the finale of the film. If you're going to watch Fight Club, please don't try to watch it with an open-mind about the characters and the things that they say. Watch it knowing everything that you know now about politics, science, religion, and humanity. I'm sure that the film will have the desired effect on you.