Hello, teenage America!

Rating: 6/10 (10 February 2008)

Fight club is now a long time classic, and I have just watched a HDTV copy that came around. At the end of the day the movie scores slightly better than 'mediocre' on my personal hype-o-meter, primarily because of the innovative approach and the visual hallucinogenic reality distortion techniques which were sort of avant guard at the time(kinda reminiscent of Jacob's Ladder which is, I believe, older). I am positive it's a movie which will continue to mesmerize teenagers worldwide for years to come, for it's a 'Hello, teenage America!' movie down to the very last cell of its bone marrow. Sadly, it utterly fails to define a counter-culture of it own (or in fact any kind of innovative sub-culture anyway). The movie starts with setting a foothold of (pseudo)solid philosophy, and builds on superb acting and character development towards an enchanting rhetoric of denial, cultural reaction, and violent action. As you will probably gather from the other reviews, the main motifs gravitate around denial of society (as a whole and as individual actors), mainstream social values and aspirations, and, well, material possessions in a purely anarchistic, nihilistic manner, rooted in violence, puke, sex, drugs and total aggression. Oh, did I mention the overall psychedelic psychopath-ism ambiance, and the grand finale 9/11 march to urban destruction, and the penis frame? By now you probably have the idea... what else... Generally acting is top notch, and overall, it's a good movie to rent, but if you expect a life-changing, eye-opening experience, you're better off looking for the 'truth' elsewhere. For all of you new to the scene, constructive rebels out there I'd recommend Nietzsche and KMFDM instead, for Fight Club is a good watch, but it's Google-generation stuff a with a short expiry date. Have fun.