"Fight Club" requires a lot of viewer trust and patience, but the reward is a very fine movie.

Rating: Null/10 (11 August 2000)

"Fight Club" runs a bit over 2 hours. For the first 1 hour and 51 minutes I found this movie very difficult to watch or enjoy. I kept wondering why Ed Norton's character continued to put up with Brad Pitt's out-of-control character. To me the movie seemed to be one big mess. However, my patience, and trust in the director, paid off and I had to watch much of the movie twice to really appreciate how good it is. I rate it 9 of 10 and predict it will be one of those ground-breaking films that viewers and critics refer to for years, much like "The Matrix" and "The Sixth Sense." It is definitely for someone with a mature mind, who can understand subtleties, and who enjoys "studying" a film. This film is definitely meant to be a funny and absurd take on life, but with a very dark tone to it. It isn't really about "fight clubs", although the fighting is presented as an avenue for characters to deal with their inner conflicts. It is not intended to represent reality, nor to suggest that fighting is good. It's closest prior film is perhaps "Doctor Strangelove."
I saw this film on DVD. The sound is perhaps the best I've heard so far. There are several crashes and explosions throughout the movie and the realism is just so good it made me cringe. But you have to have a good subwoofer to enjoy it all.
Now - CAUTION - SPOILERS FOLLOW - READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
However, I think most people will enjoy the movie more, on first viewing, if they understand the total concept. So here it is.
Norton plays the "narrator", and in the introductory scenes we find out he has a conventional existence, a traveling job as a "recall coordinator" for a major automobile manufacturer. By his own admission he is "a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct", travels with his "CK shirts and DKNY shoes", and says of his total existence "close to being complete." "Fighting" is completely foreign to him. But, deep in his subconscious he hates what he is becoming, and if he were to die now his life will have been meaningless.
Brad Pitt's character, Tyler Durden, is Norton's alter-ego. They are one and the same person. In opening scenes you see various single-frame flashes (stop-action on DVD helps see this clearly) of Pitt's 'Tyler', we assume still in Norton's subconscious as he first begins to realize he hates his existence.
Then, on a buisness flight, while talking to the lady seated next to him, Norton thinks "I pray for a crash or midair collision", which is quickly followed by a highly realistic "dream collision", then Pitt's Tyler Durden the rest of the trip is actually sitting next to Norton, conversing with him. This "prayer for a crash" is the consciousness that first makes Pitt's Tyler totally real to Norton.
The rest of the movie has many scenes with both Norton and Tyler but, we see later, no one else ever sees Brad Pitt's "Tyler", they only see Norton as "Tyler." Brad Pitt's Tyler is explained this way, "You were looking for a way to change your life. You could not do this on your own. All the ways you wish you could be - that's me. I look like you want to look... am free in all the ways you are not. Little by little you're letting yourself become - Tyler Durden."
The movie's title is unfortunately misleading, because only a small part of the movie is really about the fighting, which is used as a way for disillusioned men to get out their frustrations. One line by Norton, "This kid from work, Ricky, couldn't remember if you ordered pens with blue ink or black. But Ricky was a 'god' for 10 minutes when he trounced the maitre d' of the local food court", explains the gist of why they fight. It symbolizes the one area where they are in complete control of their pleasure and pain.
That last comment, "maitre d' of the local food court" illustrates the comedic approach to much of the movie. Who ever heard of a food court having a maitre d'? How much lower in the food chain could you get? Or Ricky supplying ink pens at work? One of the fight club "assignments", to pick a fight with a stranger, then lose", has a number of very funny sequences in it.
The movie turns very dark when the fight club kicks itself "up a notch" and begins to plot the destruction of all major buildings housing credit card companies. The rationale - destroy them and all their records of debt, and everyone can start again at ground zero. When Norton's Tyler finally at 1 hour 52 minutes into the film finally figures out what he had done, he tries unsuccessfully to twarth the plan. The final scene shows him and his girlfriend standing before a window in a high-rise, and sequentially all bombs go off and the buildings crash into various piles of rubble. Reminiscent of the final scene of "Doctor Strangelove", where all the nuclear bombs are going off, destroying the world.
The closing line, Norton says, "Everything will be alright. You met me at a really strange time in my life." Again, dark humor.
The genius of this film, if there is any, resides in the premise that the two main characters represent the two extremes of the same person, and in the end the "real" Tyler Durden meets them in the middle. Once you know this premise, and can watch the whole movie in this context, I found it much more enjoyable, made much more sense, and every scene with both Tylers is done completely in character with the premise.
The DVD also has a second DVD which is devoted to extras which are in themselves very interesting if you like to study the art of film-making. However, plan to spend a minimum of 5 hours total in viewing and studying this film to get its full impact.