High on adrenalin and visually inventive

Rating: 8/10 (15 September 2011)

This often pretty brutal examination of the male psyche is certainly a very dynamic piece of film-making. David Fincher has to be given a great deal of credit for imbuing his film with an enormous amount of energy and invention. It's a movie infused with adrenalin both thematically and stylistically. So job well done. The two lead actors are massive in contributing to this. Ed Norton supplies the edge, while Brad Pitt the movie star charisma. Both are ideal in their respective roles. There is a wicked sense of humour present throughout the film with a number of very funny moments. While the sense of the bizarre is ever present. This is hardly a realist strand of film-making. Fight Club is a dramatic film that is very fantastical. It doesn't really make it's intentions very clear cut. It leaves you the audience to decide for yourself what you make of it. This no doubt contributed to it's initial failure at the box office. It requires a bit more work from the viewer than most films. But it is also one of those movies that demands to be re-watched; it comes at you from an entirely different angle when you know the outcome in advance. Definitely one of the 90's most original studio releases.