Life-changing experience

Rating: 9/10 (18 January 2005)

Fight Club is an example of a movie that was completely dismissed by most critics, but hailed by everyone else. For me this movie has changed the way I view the world, so I guess watching it was a life-changing experience. The first time, I watched I wondered what had happened. What did I just see? The second time around, the idea that materialism and consumerism were taking over people's lives and causing impaired judgment just blew me away. I began to think in Fight Club terms. "...an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy stuff we don't need. We're the middle children of history. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War is a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we're not. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very p***ed off." That speech changed my life. It did more for me than any speech about coming together for the cause of peace ever did (which by the way, I totally believe in). Fight Club could be the movie of an entire generation of guys in their thirties who are dissatisfied with life. Self-destruction and destruction of government property is a bit over-the-top, but in this movie, it was a way to cope with all the lies fed to us about how one day we will all grow into beautiful swans. There's a difference between wanting to destroy something beautiful and actually doing it, but hey, whatever floats your boat. Besides loving the concept of this movie, I also thought it was superbly acted. Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden was everything every man could ever hope to be: "smart, capable, and most importantly, free in all the ways you are not." Edward Norton gave an underrated performance as the character sometimes referred to as Jack who was searching for a cure for his insomnia, but who found a remedy for life instead. Helena Bonham Carter was very convincing as Marla Singer, a person who craved attention. If this movie had been put in the hands of less-experienced actors, it could have gone disastrously. Most of this movie was perfect. For the greater part of it, I doubted that a better movie had ever been made. Sadly, the ending seemed out of place and implausible. I accepted that Jack had some type of dissociative disorder, but blowing up the credit card companies had no way of solving the problem of materialism and consumerism. As project mayhem's missions became more outrageous, so did the actual possibility of being able to do things and create a drastic change. However, I thought it was ingenious how they were doing all these unrestrained acts of vandalism in response to a generation of men raised by their mothers. By blowing up the credit card companies at the end they were trying to get a reaction from God. I would like to applaud Chuck Palahnuik for crafting a story that contradicts the "need" for materialism and perfection and David Fincher for capturing the lighting and delivering a very important subject to in a format that America best understands and responds to.