The film of an entire generation... masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (12 February 2006)

If someone has told you that "you need to see this movie," then they're not far off. They're probably in their 20s or 30s and lived through that time when Starbucks was the next big thing, companies were starting to ditch dial-up for DSL, Casual Friday was the only motivation they ever had to live through the week, and their parents were too busy getting divorced to force them to go to graduate school.
When it comes to periods within these eras of self-reflection, satire movies like Office Space come to mind. However, Fight Club goes a step beyond and then some, taking a look at how this lifestyle obsession invades every aspect of life, sinking into our personal lives, making it impossible to find a woman who doesn't despise your guts outside of the physical side of your relationship, where being clever and funny are the only things you have to keep yourself sane, and where a generation of MTV-raised, Saturday morning cartoons, post-Reagan politics, Hollywood-worshiping, McDonalds and 7-11 Slushees men are being turned into demasculated raving psychotics trying to find any escape from their misery.
Fight Club comes along at a time in history where it's perfect. We have our narrator and his miserable insurance salesman life with a job he hates buying all the useless crap he doesn't need to fill his apartment to satisfy himself with what he thinks makes him perfect and socially acceptable. He becomes so sick of himself that he seeks any escape. He finds hope in support groups for men with testicular cancer and starts to regain his sanity, only to have his hopes shattered when he finds another faker in the group... a woman. Things spiral out of control when he finds a strange soap salesman on a business flight and starts to take great interest in his life. He then leads him to a path to hit rock bottom, to live among the dregs of society, redefine his masculinity and prove it to others. What begins as a weekend hobby soon collapses into a downward spiral of complete and utter destruction and a seemingly hopeless struggle to put the pin back in the grenade.
The film contains line after line of brilliant writing and takes twists and turns where you least expect. Every character is acted perfectly and not a frame of film is wasted. Some have claimed this as quite possibly the least predictable movie to ever come out of Hollywood. I would completely agree. However, this is not its only strong suit. Fight Club incorporates elements from almost every genre: drama, horror, thriller, action, suspense, mystery, and romance just to name a few. It tackles so many subjects and has so many messages it's really hard to know what to look at first. This is one of those movies where everyone has a favorite scene and no one has the same favorite quote. A film that speaks for an entire generation of men and the future of our lifestyle obsessed society, Fight Club is an all-time favorite for me and I would recommend it to absolutely anyone. Just sit down and watch with an open mind and you will not be disappointed.