Movie Review

Rating: Null/10 (14 October 2009)

The narrator of Fight Club (Edward Norton) is a young professional who suffers from insomnia. One day while on a business trip, he meets a soap salesman named Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) and the two quickly become friends. The pair soon start taking their aggression out on each other by fighting. The narrator realizes this is the only cure for his insomnia. Soon enough, word spreads about their fights and soon people are interested. This leads the narrator and Tyler to form fight clubs. The fight clubs start out just fighting, but Tyler starts handing out assignments to start fights with random people and destroy private property. Finally, the fight clubs spiral out of control with their final shocking assignment.
The meaning of Fight Club is about finding meaning in life. The movie starts with an ordinary man whose only enjoyment in life is ordering products from his IKEA catalog. He finally finds something he enjoys more than IKEA by fighting people. This may not be the most positive way to get a message across, but it's very powerful. The sheer brutality in the fights in comparison to the subtle beginning of the film is one example of the effectiveness of the message. One negative aspect of the films meaning is a person may need to watch the film more than once to understand the meaning.
One of the things I noticed while watching Fight Club is the dark picture and violence in the film. This good part about this is the film sets the mood very well by such a dark picture. On the other hand, many people may steer clear of this film because of the violence. The best feature of the film is the pace and tone set by the narrator. The narrator makes us feel and care about all the characters in the film. Fight Club is also very well paced; I always was glued to my seat waiting to see what was next. If you're looking for a well paced, well acted, but very dark drama, look no further than Fight Club.