cool movie

Rating: 8/10 (12 January 2014)

Fight Club is multi-faceted movie about a man who is deeply unsatisfied with his life in the modern age, even with all the trappings of success that much of our society is based on, and decides to go off the beaten path to find his own personal satisfaction. From that point on the movie spirals out of control and into the abyss. This is a good thing. The movie holds many meanings and shows the characters in favorable and unfavorable ways. It does not try to cast things in a typical good and evil view point, nor does it say whether the choices the protagonist and the rest of the cast make are sound ones. One of the things it does do is look into the nature of our past, viewing the structure of our society and analyzing why we do what we do to live. It isn't until the narrator (Edward Norton) begins to destroy himself that he finally comes to realize what matters to him. That is when he meets two important characters, Marla Singer and Tyler Durden. It is during this time that the narrator escapes from his normal life by hosting with Tyler an underground fight club that evolved from the two just fighting outside of a local bar. Taking in Tyler's view on life, which is somewhat refreshing and scary at the same time, they form a close bond strongly resembling a married couple. The two do everything together and the narrator begins to emulate Tyler more and more, all the while the fight club grows stronger and stronger until it has become this cult-like phenomenon with Tyler and the narrator as leaders making rules for conducting fight club. Anarchy and non-conformity is their message, which I believe is meant to underscore the irony of fight club and their non-conformist, fight the man attitude. As the group evolves into something more dangerous, this irony becomes more apparent in the way those who once questioned the established authority, now blindly follow their "non-conformist" new group. Its been a little over a decade since Fight Club "enlightened" me, but it still gives me the same conflicting feelings about its message and the nature of humanity in general. There are those who would take it at its face value and see nothing but frustrated, grown men beating each other senselessly, and that's a shame because there is definitely much more going on then that. David Fincher has crafted an excellent movie: it's disgustingly stylish in its execution...almost too much, if that's possible. The sound track, done by the Dust Brothers burrowed it's way into my brain and never left. The movie would not be the same without it. As far as the actors performances, Ed Norton and Brad Pitt both have a strong rapport and the scenes come off naturally, while Helena Bonham Carter's Marla is hauntingly tragic, and filled with a desperate, but subtle sadness to her. At the time of the original screening this movie polarized people into the two camps of love or hate, due to it's ability to offended or amaze, but I wouldn't have it any other way