Brightly inventive, great acting, a volcano of hyper-creativity about ordinary people, and The TRUTH.

Rating: 10/10 (17 October 2005)

I chose this as the best film I'd ever seen for two reasons: the script and the acting, both of which are without peer. We've come to expect greatness from Edward Norton, who can make us gasp with the slightest change in the blood vessels of his eyeball, but Brad Pitt provides Norton with the perfect acting foil. This film demonstrates why Pitt needs better scripts, because it proves he is in the top tier of American actors. He needs to stop hanging around Clooney (although after "Good Night and Good Luck" we may all be rooting for Clooney to get writing and directing Oscars) and start seeking out non-genre scripts. Working together cemented a close friendship between Norton and Pitt -- it's a compliment to both to say that they deserve each other. The movie is hilarious and dead serious and a sharpshooter when it comes to urban male psychology. I'll bet you can't watch it just once! You'll want to watch it the second time with the subtitles on, just to make sure you get all the verbal sorcery. What great dialog! Some people are afraid of this movie because of the fight scenes, which are indeed realistic and bloody, but that commitment not to soften or dumb down the film is completely right and part of what makes this such an intelligent, watchable, and, finally, a "moral" film that occupies the ethical high ground without going anywhere near the pulpit. FIGHT CLUB is one of the high points of 20th century art.