Fincher's weakest work

Rating: 5/10 (16 November 2014)

"Fight Club" is one of those movies where you need to watch it more than once to fully understand what happened in the movie. The problem is that "Fight Club" leaves you with no reason to re-watch it other than to know if the movie is actually a complex but brilliant masterpiece, or an overrated film that just barely rises above mediocrity. I guess I will have to stay with believing the latter because nothing makes me want to return.
The narrator (Edward Norton), who is suffering from insomnia, meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) on a company trip. When the narrator returns to his apartment, he finds that it has been destroyed and, with no one else to go to, calls Tyler. The narrator moves into Tyler's house and one night, upon Tyler's request, the narrator punches him. The two begin to fight and attract a crowd of people, which becomes Fight Club.
"Fight Club" is hailed as a brilliant social commentary about consumerism and how we as people live our lives now, though it isn't saying anything more than any other person or form of media that has spoken up about consumerism, and at the same time is feeding the viewer a false idea. Tyler says, "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 sh*t we don't need." Right, because there are no other reasons why people would be working these jobs that they hate? Not everything is about consumerism. Some people have jobs for that reason, but others have certain situations in their lives which makes them have to take these white collar jobs even if they hate it. In all fairness, the movie does save itself a bit by disapproving of Tyler's radical plans, but it is still trying to pass off his ideas as an important message when his they are flawed.
Carrying on the theme of trying to be brilliant but failing, let's take a look at the plot. So, Tyler is just a figment of the Narrator's imagination because of his insomnia. Okay, got it. So, the Narrator is fighting himself in the parking lot of the bar when a group of guys comes out to watch and decides that they want to fight as well, which means that they were the first people to join fight club. But, they saw that there was obviously something wrong with the Narrator because he's fighting himself, so why would they end up following a guy who was obviously not all there? He wasn't spreading his propaganda about consumerism at the time either, so they weren't following him because they believed his ideas. Then, the twist that Tyler was in the Narrator's head the whole time is one of the laziest twists in cinematic history. Ignoring the fact that it barely makes sense like with the example I gave above, the twist of something being in a character's mind is like a film student level idea when they're trying to be deep. Then, to get rid of Tyler, the Narrator shoots himself in the head and that somehow kills him. I've heard that it's supposed to symbolize that the Narrator was finally able to let go of Tyler and is able to make his own choice now, but to me, symbolism only works if it makes sense. What it's symbolizing makes sense, how it's done doesn't.
Along with Pitt and Norton, Helena Bonham Carter (Marla) also appears in the film, who is used for nothing more than additional pointless drama, that makes no sense in the grand scheme of things. It is said throughout the whole movie that the Narrator doesn't like Marla, but the side of him that's Tyler at least tolerates her or has romantic feelings towards her or something. So, at the end, when Project Mayhem is about to go through with its master plan, the Narrator warns Marla to leave town and when she's captured, he goes to help her. Now, it makes a little sense that he might feel guilty about getting her involved, even though he was willing to let her die earlier in the film, but then it implies some sort of deeper connection between them, even though it was the Tyler side of the Narrator that liked her, and it's shown that the Narrator and Tyler both have different ideas and thoughts, so they are individuals, but now the Narrator suddenly cares about Marla.
"Fight Club" is a movie with a flawed understanding of society that, while it's condemning the actions of Tyler Durden, it is promoting his flawed logic as some sort of important message about society and how we live our lives. This movie comes off to me one of those films that actually has very little or nothing new to say, but people believe it has an important commentary to it and praise it even though it's nothing more or less than mediocre and barely worth remembering. I like David Fincher a lot and while, based on what I've seen, I don't believe he's made a bad movie yet, this is cutting is pretty close.