Hang in there

Rating: 7/10 (21 February 2000)

I find it incredible how many times I've heard the following comment - and from professional reviewers! -: it begins well, but loses its way in the second half in a welter of violence ...
Is it possible to be more wrong? It's a very good film, but you'd never know it from the beginning. Opening credits (and first shot): pointlessly hip computer-aided graphics that contribute nothing to story, mood, etc. Music: rock schlock drivel that makes you wonder why they bothered to commission a score at all. Worst of all, the opening is stuffed to the gills with tacky first-person narration; and after waiting half an hour for the narration to end and the movie to begin, we find that it won't. The narration won't end, that is. The movie DOES get underway, but we must first suffer music, editing, the pretentious rubbish spouted by the narrator, and ... well, I suspect that Fincher has defeated his purpose by overloading the screen with gore, because most of us will look away and not see it.
Take heart. The story is a good one, after all, and the film's second half justifies most (but not quite all) of what we had to endure at the beginning. Reviewers are wrong: there's LESS gratuitous violence towards the end; that is to say, less GRATUITOUS violence, - I wasn't actually counting blows. How can I put this ...? The film takes off and soars despite its flaws, and I should know, because I'm well aware of the flaws. It's a pity I can't say any more without spoiling things.
Oh, and in case you were worried ... this is no glorification of Tyler Durden, or of any aspect of his character, or of Fight Club. It's a condemnation. The film is not to blame if so many people fail to see this.