An overrated film by an overrated director based on an overrated book by an awful writer

Rating: 3/10 (16 April 2006)

I can't go on. No, I will go on.
Fight Club represents one of the worst films I've ever encountered inasmuch it aims for intelligence and subversion but winds up wide of the mark. It's gimmicky and trite and all together pointless. I didn't enjoy it when I first saw it, and now I despise it because some people have elevated it to the level of a masterpiece. Those people are wrong.
In trying to address violence in American culture (at least I hope that was the film's intention), the movie fails entirely. It does nothing to subvert the brutal violence on screen or address it in any meaningful manner. Look at Sergio Leone or Sam Peckinpah; they made often violent films that pique the audience's bloodlust only to ultimately undermine that desire for violence. Leone built up the tension and then refused to show you the gore you wanted; Peckinpah slowed it down to the point that the violence became unbearable. Fincher may have wanted to have the same effect on his audience, but he doesn't; the violence in Fight Club is enjoyed by the audience and they keep wanting more. It explores the lure of violence to a degree but then backs off this more thoughtful approach in favor of simply showing the violence. There isn't an attempt made by the filmmakers to question the characters' actions and that seems to me a grave mistake.
As for the philosophical elements of this film? They're adolescent beliefs in breaking free of monotony and ennui; the anti-materialist screed, though justified by our culture, is ultimately shallow. It's angry at consumerism and our love of objects (doesn't this movie love gadgetry and gimmickry though?), but it doesn't really show us any alternative, unless the alternative is violence. And, frankly, I'm not willing to accept that. Or maybe the movie's just saying that the dehumanization present in contemporary society could lead to violence. That's okay, but what's the solution. When you have a film that doesn't really look at quasi- fascist ideas in horror, you need to offer us something. This adolescent nihilism is just, well, silly teenage claptrap. It's like this: when I was 15, I love A Clockwork Orange; I'm older now and find the nihilism of its characters as well as its attempts at formulating ideas about society superficial. That's probably what will happen with the majority of this film's supporters. They'll grow up and realize its an adolescent fantasy made by older men who have yet to mature.