Well, you can tell THIS one was made before 9/11...

Rating: 9/10 (10 June 2004)

That was my overwhelming feeling on re-watching 'Fight Club' last night. Could you imagine this movie being released after 9/11? And I think that if I can take that a little further it might speak to the generally unadventerous, uncontroversial, scared to put a foot wrong film making which has been coming out of Hollywood in the past three years. But we don't have room for that here.
I watched Fight Club when it was first released and I didn't like it. In fact I disliked it so much that I turned it off 3/4 of the way through. Watching it four years later I can't imagine why I didn't stay riveted to the set. Maybe back in 1999/2000 it had a bit more meaty competition.
Yet another film which you really can't talk about in too much detail without spoiling, but let's allow this much: the main character is a yuppie who, through a chance encounter with a charismatic stranger on a plane, discovers the hollowness of his life, and uses physical violence and self-injury as a means of liberating himself from it. Or so it all seems...
This is an audacious and confronting movie, artfully put together, with lots of lovely scenes where the whole illusion of film-making is highlighted. Characters suddenly speak to the audience or walk through a scene which morphs into a furniture brochure. And there are more, and more pivotal shocks of this kind to come. It's funny, smart, unexpected, brutal, and takes no prisoners. The only thing which lets it down and keeps it from being an almost perfect movie, IMO, is that the ending (an albeit marvelously unexpected ending) just starts to push credibility to its breaking point, even for a film which doesn't take itself entirely seriously.
Still, this film is currently averaging a score of 8.5, and I'd say that's about right.