NOT ABOUT VIOLENCE

Rating: 10/10 (25 June 2004)

This movie is among the best that I have ever seen. It is witty, humorous, and thought provoking. The reason that I, personally, love this movie, is that there is a bit of Tyler Durden in every person. This "free man" is suppressed within the confines of taboo and society, and there it suffocates and dies. But that is beyond the point. What I am feebly attempting to say about this movie, is that it is a satire on all of the meaningless blue collar lives of the middle class of America.
I have heard critics that this movie is "dark and cynical" because they are perhaps missing the crucial undercurrents of the purpose and depth of this masterpiece. To say that this movie is violent and (I've heard some people say) scary is completely missing the point. It isn't scary...it is enlightening. It represents a world that we are all too scared to be in, a life that we are all to scared too live. This movie is nothing new, it isn't original or unique. Fight clubs have been alive and kicking since the first time a man experienced the rush of adrenaline after he asked his buddy, "I want you to hit me as hard as you can".
As I quote, "Before young men started scarring kisses into their hands with lye or Superglue [...] Before you could walk through airports and hear bogus public address announcements paging 'Tyler Durden...Would Tyler Durden please pick up the white courtesy phone...' [] Before all that...there was just a [seven page] short story." (Fight Club, the novel-introduction. Chuck Palahniuk). The book started because Chuck Palahniuk needed a way to pass the time. The book never was intended to go very far. The critics hated it, and people were not interested in a book called 'Fight Club'. Mr. Palahniuk said that he would have done better with a book entitled: 'Barn-Raising Club'. But it doesn't matter what the critics think, does it? It matters what the people thinkand they loved it. This book, I feel, is a work of genius. The type of literary genius that is so carefully avoided by John Steinbeck and Albert Camus has taken the minds of young boys and conformed it to think, "We are the all-singing all-dancing crap of the world".
There have been realists in the past, but none so believable as Tyler Durden. When one sees the movie you cannot help but believe Tyler when he tells us 'You are not what's in your wallet, you are not your f**king khakis'. You cannot help but revere him when he tells the store clerk 'In six weeks, if you are not on your way to becoming a veterinarian, you will die'. I don't think that they could have cast the movie any better, either. Brad Pitt is amazingly real. When I saw the movie, I couldn't help but think that is the way that he truly is. The narrator plays the sort of pathetic person that would dream up an imaginary friend to make himself feel better. An unbelievable part played to perfection. Marla is not a bombshell but seems to be the perfect fit for a lecherous lady that is the cause for the anguish.
It is a work of genius as far as I'm concerned. I am not a critic, I have no PHD and I am not anyone who truly matters to anyone's personal opinion. But this movie isn't dark, scary, or cynical if you listen to what Tyler Durden says. A world where all people are equal, a world of freedom, a world where you actually live and are not just "a copy of a copy of a copy". The fighting is a minute part of this movie in all actuality. This movie is not about violence...it is about the bonding of men, the trials of love, the torture of being a bit crazy, but most of all it is about a world that is not concerned with your status, your sofa, your cornflower blue tie. THAT is Fight Club, my friends. THAT is the essence of Tyler Durden.