** 1/2 out of ****

Rating: 7/10 (1 October 2002)

As much as I admired the ambition and uniqueness of "Fight Club", I couldn't force myself to like it. It's dark and gritty atmosphere felt like it was borrowing a little to heavily from "Taxi Driver" and films of that like. The plot twist at the end was interesting, as was the story in general. What bothered me was the direction. There were some brilliantly made scenes, but a lot of them felt a little silly - almost like Fincher was trying too hard to be fast-paced "MTV generation" style. On top of that, some of the dialogue, especially Tyler Durdan's was poorly written - especially in cases where he was meant to throw in little witty remarks. Pitt's performance was weak, especially put up against Ed Norton, who was impressive, as usual. Thematically, the bottom line is that, when all was said and done, this movie had no idea what it was about, and suffered because of it. Fincher is a superb talent, but this is not his best showcase - "Se7en" was a much better application of his style.