This is your burning hand, it's right here

Rating: Null/10 (24 May 2000)

It's a youth film. My parents didn't get it. They accused it of suggesting violence as a solution to life problems. What can you say? The movie speaks to the generic generation, my generation. Like Durden says, "we are a transitional generation, no cause or purpose." How can the muffed old bags at the Academy possibly understand? No one saw it in theaters anyway. No one, I say, except Fincher enthusiasts.
Somehow, Fight Club had been hiding inside me for years, waiting to get out. I bought the soundtrack and listened to the last track, which is a mix of Tyler's more colorful advice. That summed it up. "This is your life, and it's ending on minute at a time." I'm a carpe-diem athiest myself, and the notion that being a god for ten minutes in an arena beats out a lifetime of selling pens really resonated. One can help but feel completely and totally numbed after the Fight Club is over.
Yes, technically outstanding, artistically superior. I'd liken it to the Clockwork Orange of my time: misunderstood, undergrossed, overlooked. It's full of star power, and both Norton and Pitt turn out career-shining performances, but the deeper secret to success is the fact that the film reminds you you're watching it. The use of Tyler's random appearances early in the film are brilliant, the time flashes, the freezes, the framed narration, and especially the concept of film being rattled and offcenter create a subversive atmosphere that directly attacks the audience.
The success of Fight Club relies on it's confrontational style. The raw and truthful gore, the in-your-face cinematography, the brash and outright message. (the things you own end up owning you)
A testament of the counterculture to come, Fincher weaves one of the most poigniant stories ever to cross American film. It doesn't touch you, it doesn't warm you, it grabs you and beats your face in, all the while selling you your own fat ass back.
Tolka's advice: evacuate the parental units, then proceed to induct your membership into the last club you'll ever need.