"In Tyler we trusted"...

Rating: Null/10 (20 May 2000)

Ah, Fight Club... as Entertaniment Weekly put it, "the most bashed movie of 1999, as well as the most lionized" How this movie could be met with such distain at the box office as well as with a number of critics will forever cause me to wonder what in the world were they thinking. This is simply the best film of 1999, and possibly of the decade. Calling the film "facist" is a cop-out. It is an obviously anti-violence film that was just conveyed in a way a little too brutal a fashion for some critics to stomach, thus clouding their perception on the actual message of the film (of course, this is just my theory). What the film is truly about is men in a world becoming more "civilized" every day, feeling repressed by the system that has enveloped in. In this society, there is no way to test one's true worth... to take a high risk would be to invest in the UPN network... so these men, in an attempt to reject the consumerism that they feel may envelop them, discover a way of recalling their most primal feelings and urges through "fight club", a place for frustrated men to go to feel as if they have truly accomplished something... by beating the living crap out of each other. (Tread carefully, for there are SPOILERS ahead)I will talk now as if you, the reader, already knows the premise of the film... To make Tyler Durden a nonexistent entity of the Narrator's imagination is vital to the message... unlike "The Sixth Sense", this plot twist actually has more of a purpose than to just make you say "wow, I wasn't expecting that!" It is showing an extreme situation that could happen to a repressed male in this consumerist society (a very extreme, overblown situation). It's like the film is saying the closer we get to a "perfect" civilized society, the more people will feel repressed and will try to rebel, and depart back to the more primal urges of their barbaric ancestors. The style of the film greatly enhances it as well. In all, this film speaks to me in a way no other film of the 1990's has, and I truly believe that it will become more accepted as time progresses, and those bonehead critics will wise up and laud it for the piece of cinematic gold that it is.