A misunderstood film about the way things ought to be

Rating: 9/10 (12 June 2000)

Fight Club has been described as social satire, black humor, or just plain trash. The fact is that is is none of the above. Fight Club takes on the subject of the diminishing male role in todays society.
The setting of the film, the characters obvious mental and social anxiety, and the popular twist at the end are simply secondary plot elements. In it's core it is about men finding themselves in a society that has nothing to do with them and in fact is against everything men hold dear.
The film starts off with Ed Norton searching for meaning in his life. His search begins in the current acceptable manner of support groups where discovering feelings and crying with one another are considered effective treatments. This is especially obvious in the main support group shown, the testicular cancer group.
Perhaps a bit of explaination is in order here. Men hold their genitals as their only tie to a bygone era of masculinity, nothing takes away that feeling like the loss is a man's testicles. (The same is true for women who undergo hysterectomys) While this isn't quite obvious with Norton's character, Meatloaf's character Bob is truely hurting in a world where he has lost his balls and has to cry to feel better, both which served to immasculate him further.
Eventually even this world is invaded and Norton has to find other avenues to explore the masculine tendancies that he cannot ignore. Enter the Fight Club.
Many people have written on the subject of this film. Many with comments that they couldn't understand how men could pound each other to a bloody pulp and still be friends afterwards. The answer is simple. Fight Club is therapy. Fight Club gave everyone involved a sense of self-respect that other forms of therapy couldn't or wouldn't address. The mutual poundings that you received weren't to rob or maim or kill, but to prove to yourself and to others that despite your role at work (notice that most of the participants were waiters and busboys, very immasculating professions) or at home they were still men. Men who could fight and sweat and get beaten and still be alive - in fact finally be alive for the first time.
Fight Club wasn't about anarchy, it was about solidarity. Fight Club wasn't about destroying society, it was about rediscovering a lost feeling. Regaining that lost feeling made the participants willing to destroy that which had taken that feeling from them. They weren't killing people, they were destrying property and ideas. Property from institutions that gave ideas that said what they were doing was wrong, and had been telling them this since they were born.
From a personal perspective I didn't enjoy the plot twist. I found it both a bit difficult to swallow and found it to be lacking in it's ability to explain what had happened in the movie. However it doesn't matter. ***POSSIBLE SPOILER*** The twist was designed to show that such a sport could only be created by an insane mind - which is probably the only reason the film was allowed to be made by a studio.
The basic plot wasn't destroyed though. Take away a man's chance to be a man and he will attempt to destroy whatever took that away. A great film about the male psyche. I for one look forward to copycat clubs forming in my area. I for one intend to join.