Cleverly cynical and satirical

Rating: Null/10 (13 December 2002)

High pitch, edgy and intense  I feel these are the best words to describe this movie. This irreverent look at urbanization and its after-effects kept me totally engrossed for its full duration. The movie is about Ed Norton, a disillusioned white-collar worker in one of the Big American cities (it is either Detroit or Chicago). He works as a recall consultant' for a major auto company and his job involves checking cars after their accidents and either settling with the victims or recommending the car company to recall it. The movie begins with Ed's in-ability to sleep. When he sees his doctor and begs him to prescribe a medicine as he is going through a lot of pain, the doctor suggests him to go to a weekly meeting of people having testicular cancer to see what real pain is like. Ed follows his advice, meets people there and finds that he can get a very good night's sleep after that  probably the closeness and openness of the settings sooth him. He gets addicted to this therapy' and starts frequenting other meetings' of alcoholics, various cancer patients etc. It becomes a daily routine. He doesn't have a problem in appearing as one of them because he keeps quite and If I don't say anything, people assume the worst'. This routine continues well until he sees another free-rider Marla Singer He feels disturbed once again and they arrive at an agreement in which they would alternate going to various clubs.

This whole episode of Ed going through the therapy is really a pre-cursor of things to come in the movie  similar to the way in which the elevator-chase' opened the movie Speed' and birds' opened Monsters Inc.' Ed's life takes another turn when he meets Brad Pitt in one of his flights as his single serving friend' (Ed's way of defining things in a flight  single serving meals, single serving drinks, single serving chocolates and single serving neighbors). Brad makes soaps out of human fat (obtained from the dumpsters outside liposuction clinics), inserts adult movie snippets into family movies (that everybody watches but nobody is sure that they watched it), adulterates pricey restaurants' delicacies with his bodily fluids and so on. Ed likes that character and, when his apartment (in fact the whole building) gets blown up in mysterious situations, Brad is the one whom he calls to ask for help. Brad not only offers him beer but also his abode. He also introduces Ed to fighting  they fight like animals on the streets in nights. Gradually, this exhibition of their talent' attracts other regular' guys too. This gathering becomes big enough for them to launch' a Fight Club'  an underground, nightly congregation that nobody is supposed to talk about'.

The events then center around Ed's life being shaped by Brad's ideas and personality  both of which are quite rebellious. Ed seems to have again found a balance in his life  fighting in the nights and not concerned about being and looking the same way in his office too. Brad inducts him into tolerating pain, art of explosives making etc. Marla Singer has re-entered Ed's life. It doesn't take Brad long to take her over and Ed finds himself observing Brad in this situation too. Fight Club is thriving and Brad has become increasing creative in his ideas  he is now building an underground army to take down the urban institutions like corporate artifacts' standing tall in public, credit cards company buildings containing the debt records of their customers etc. Regular' urban workers staff his army.
Ed feels increasingly overwhelmed and overtaken by Brad  and he becomes so agitated that Brad leaves him. Now Ed is trying his best to save' the society from the impending crimes' that Brad had envisaged. But Ed can't find any help  even the police officers are members of the underground army. To prove his point, Ed tries to find Brad once again. This takes him to an around the country trip and he sees Fight Clubs mushrooming everywhere. He finally finds Brad  and also uncovers a shocking fact  Brad and he are the same.

Verdict: The movie has a very strong in-the-face-of-urbanization' tone. It is cleverly cynical and satirical and is marked by great performances from the lead actors. Watch this movie only if you can take out un-interrupted 2.5 hours for a dark and intense piece of motion picture art.