Fight Club (3/5 stars)

Rating: 7/10 (21 March 2005)

For those who are picky this could have spoilers. So if you don't want an in depth look at the details then move on.
Synopsis: "Fight Club" is a movie that reminds me of a beautiful train heading for an unbeknownst yet impending doom. It starts off promising, everyone is excited about the journey that lies ahead, and the train's grace and splendor is so inviting (a.k.a the witty dialogue and Norton's narration has set us up for quite a ride). Then with out warning the engineer (a.k.a the writer) picks up the train's speed and it continues to accelerate down the track until a marvelous crash, which leaves us wondering as to what happened? The problem with "Fight Club", as in so many movies, is not the first half but the last half; in fact, the first part of the movie excellent. Edward Norton is a down and out guy so upset with his life that his only perk (and only way to sleep) is to go to different support groups (i.e. "Smoker's Anonymous," "Men With Testicular Cancer," etc.) and wallow in other people's misery. Unfortunately for Ed's character, a very strange woman, Marla, comes along and ruins his fun, for she is doing the same exact thing he is. In an amusing scene, Ed's character and Marla decide to split up the support groups so that they do not have to cross each other's paths. Well, after this bit all seems well for Ed until he meets a very strange, machoistic, and aggressive guy named Tyler (Brad Pitt). Eventually Ed's character befriends Tyler and the two of them start a fight club to get there aggression out on each other and anyone else who would like to join. This is where the movie begins to deteriorate. Ed's character and Tyler start the club so that they can get their lives back on track (or at least this is true for Ed's character), and it works--everything seems a-OK after a few brawls with the locals. Now what does this tell us? That violence will make everything alright? It seems to me that the latter is the message, and I have a problem with that because violence never solves anything. Well anyway, after Tyler and Ed's character start the club they begin "Project Mayhem" which is an underground terrorist group made up of working class guys who want to attack consumerism. This is where our train has gone off the tracks. When I was watching the film I felt like the writer suddenly had no where else to go with his original ideas except to create a bunch of terrorists, which looking back on it, is quite laughable. The end of the movie is rather good except for a few spots, but I will not go into that because it would spoil some big secrets. I guess the real problem I had with this movie was the "why?" Why the hell did a writer sit down one day and decide to write a story condoning violence yet denouncing consumerism? You see, the problem is that this movie becomes a bit of a paradox; it tells us to not buy into materialism because it is superficial and unneeded (which by the way I agree with), but at the same time it tells us to use fist fights and terrorism as a means to achieve our goals (which is just so much more logical then buying into materialism--our we honestly suppose to believe this junk?). It seems to me that the writer was just another crazed radical who so happened to have some good ideas for a movie. Don't get me wrong, "Fight Club" is a fairly good movie filled with originality, but it just really doesn't have a worthwhile point. For the above reasons I am giving "Fight Club": 3 out of 5 stars.
NOTE: 1/5 stars = bad 2/5 stars = OK 3/5 stars = good 4/5 stars = great 5/5 stars = classic