David Fincher betters Se7en with a Number 10!

Rating: 10/10 (9 June 2000)

We all knew David Fincher could make a second trip to the well. Se7en proved Alien3 was a film by committee screw-up, and Fight Club reveals The Game to be nothing more than post-phenomenon jitters. Phew. But Fincher does more than merely demonstrate his cinematic nerve; with Fight Club he recalibrates the term controversy, taking a disturbing, savagely intelligent, ferociously funny trip into the life of the mind. Violence and chuckles in the same film? No wonder the papers had such hissy-fits.
Jack (Edward Norton) is reaching critical exasperation with his white-collar job and lifestyle. A chronic insomniac, he begins crashing various group therapy courses at a local church, maintaining critical distance through a wry voiceover.
Fight Club is intoxicating, its humour the blackest kind, the violence never less than bone crunching. At the end of the millennium, with no wars to fight and no cause to champion, the suggestion that a fight club answers men's cries for freedom from the hell of 9-5 is heady stuff. But Fight Club is not a threat to society anymore than Natural Born Killers or A Clockwork Orange were. With a level of realism pitched at hyper, the film is more a joyride for the brain than a call to arms.
As a director Fincher does not let the adrenalin high drop once, using combinations of cinematic left hooks and upper cuts. Camera's plunge thirty storeys, travel through a character's brain, are on the receiving end of vicious blows, are addressed directly by Jack and finally shake with the giddiness of it all. The Dust Brothers' frenzied, schizophrenic score, and Jim Uhls' script, a superb adaptation from Chuck Palahniuk's book, complement this visual overload.
Pitt again proves he is Fincher's boy, while Norton deserves Oscar recognition for his multi-layered turn. Even English rose Bonham-Carter convinces, as does Meatloaf as Bob.
Fight Club also contains the best twist since Dudley Smith shot Jack Vincennes. Unbelievably attacked from all quarters, this plot turn adds yet more dimensions to the insanity of modern man. Just don't let anyone reveal it to you.
Fight Club then: it's dark, it's disturbing and unsettling. For better or worse it's a guy film, a wonderfully creative nightmare. It will be the best ruck you've had in ages.