Brilliant, one of the best movies ever.

Rating: 10/10 (22 August 2003)

I remember back in 1999, I saw a commercial for this movie on TV. Like many others, I blindly watched the commercial and somehow assumed that it was some stupid action flick that somehow got popular actors in it. " Fight Club? What kind of stupid movie title is that?? Why would you want to hurt yourself like that". While it did only okay in the box office, eventually it became a cult classic. I saw part of it on a Movie Channel a few years after it was released, and really liked it but I hadn't seen the whole thing. A message board I went to ranked it as the best movie of all time. I had seen it on many top 100 movies list and I hadn't realized until then how loved it was. So then I saw it again, and I was blown away. This is now my favorite movie ever.
The movie mixes genres....it's like a crazy mix of a Drama, Black Comedy, and a Thriller. And that's one of the many reasons why it's so great. The beginning of the movie shows the Unnamed Narrator ( Edward Norton) struggling through life. He is wealthy, but seems to think his life has no puprose. He works in the day, goes home, and spends all of his money on possessions and expensive things that he does not need. He is a slave. He is also cursed with insomina. Eventually, he finds freedom and hope by going to support group meetings for people with diseases. This helps him sleep and makes him go on with life like a normal person. Until Marla Singer ( Helena Bonham Carter) starts attending support group meetings, and like the Narrator, she is a faker. With another faker, the Narrator can't cry at the meetings to be happy or sleep at night. So they agree to split up there meetings. One day, he meets an odd but flamboyant fellow named Tyler Durden ( Brad Pitt) on an airplane. Tyler is everything he isn't, but in many ways is everything that he wants to be. The Narrator's condo blows up, and has no where to go, until Tyler lets him live at his delapitated house where he makes soap ( He is a soap salesmen and other jobs include a projector who splices porn into children movies and a waiter at a hotel). On one night, Tyler asks the Narrator to him..." as hard as you can". The Narrator finds this dumb, but they enjoy themselves and find out that fighting is the cure from society and coporate consumurism. They eventually start " Fight Club" together..and meet in basements of bars to free themselves.

Things are perfect for a while, until Tyler loses control and what was once a Fight Club turns into what could be compared to a terrorist organization , and it's up to the Narrator to stop it all...you will find this out when the shocking twist is revealed, as it changes the movie forever and turns it into one of the most re watchable movies ever. The second time you watch it, hidden messages and subtle references are made vivid to the viewer , and therefore, to me it's one of the best movies ever. It's brutal , funny, and touching at the same time. Fight Club is also one of the most quotable movies ever..
" Things you own...end up owning you"
" This is your life..and it's ending one minute at a time"
" Put a gun to my head and paint the walls with my brains"
" On a long enough time scale, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero"
" Without pain, without sacrafice, we'd have nothing"
" You are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world"
" It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything"