FIGHTCLUB is a welcome smack in the mouth for all of us

Rating: 8/10 (13 January 2000)

The first rule of Fight Club is, DO NOT TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB. It is also the second rule. I'm all for some serious rule changes because Fight Club is one of those films everyone should see and everyone will talk about. "What the hell?" and "Why on earth?" will be your watchwords after viewing this.
Fight Club is the 'creative outlet' of Ed Norton (insomniac support group junkie) and Brad Pitt, (mysterious, enigmatic soap maker) whose partnership comes about through their disaffection with their lives. They find like-minded menial workers who join them in the taste for punching seven shades of shluck out of each other and then decide to bring the world they feel has abandoned them to its knees.
As with all the works of the now famed 'mess with your mind' director, David Fincher Fight Club is far more than this. The plot moves along swiftly, using nice slick frames and sharp, funny dialogue to get on to what the fights (the violence keeps the film cooking but isn't overdone) and essentially, life is really about.
Some will feel for all the pretty asides, (Meatloaf's breasts) Fight Club is too dark and that the ending is just plain weird and unreal. Fightclub's unreality is sharp and places blame for our oh-so-shallow society squarely on the shoulders of the corporate fascists who tell us how we should live. This is done with clever cocksure swaggering irony considering Fightclub is brought to us on the very medium most responsible for popular images. Not that I advocate we all take up arms against Hollywood, but I love a film that asks explosive questions and seeks to pour nitroglycerine on the answers, the heat that comes off is very entertaining.
Give Schizophrenia a chance. This film is not a "beautiful and unique snowflake" but it's a snowflake nonetheless.