Inside Jack's mind.

Rating: 10/10 (20 August 2002)

From the opening scene of a man with his gun in his mouth you realize that Fight Club is not the action film you thought it might be but rather dark and surreal. His voice echoing out like a deranged man in the midst of personal conflict and struggle. This is not a happy man rather he is one with intense problems and a unique perspective.
Fincher's cinematography is breathtaking in this highly misunderstood film. From the title you imagine a film about street boxing and violence and yet this is far from the center of the film. The film is deeply disturbing but not for violence (truth be told it is not that violent a film) it is disturbing because it exposes some of those things about the human condition that'd we'd prefer to forget, as well as the consequences of violence that Hollywood normally glosses over. Most shocking is it's expose of life - of the drudgery of society and normal life.
Faithful to Palahnuik's novel we're shown the failure of a society that has lost it's vision. Engulfed by the rat race that drains the life out of us and leaves us seeking to merely survive the system with cynicism rather than making our impact, finding what we long for and asking the big questions.

In one of the striking scene shopworker Raymond K.Hessel, a man who has lost his grip on his dream, gets the wake up call. Tyler Duerden forces his way inside our society like a virus to destroy it and wake us up to the mess we're in. Does Tyler have the genuine solution or merely the potential to self-destruct?
We've fallen short of the standard. Our modernistic utopia has failed. We're merely chasing the wind. What will we do when hope disappoints?