Mostly really good

Rating: Null/10 (22 March 2001)

My college roommate, a film studies major, hated this- he called it "facist," his keyword for a movie he really enjoyed but didn't want to. It's not that it was cheesy or shallow- recall that film majors of the 21st century are allowed, even encouraged, to like shallow.
I guess the objection is to the "waste" of David Fincher's fine-tuned and thrilling cinematic intelligence many see this film as. You walk away not knowing what to think, or worse, with the feeling that the director didn't know what to think and was just throwing half-baked ideas out on the screen recklessly, so doesn't that mean it's ultimately a waste?
Stupid theorizing aside, there are two major things I like about the movie and one major thing I don't, so in the final accounting, it gets thumbs up.
Good thing 1: The beginning of the movie in which Edward Norton searches for his mojo in terminal illness discussion groups. The most energetically filmed and intelligent black comedy I've ever seen.
Good thing 2: The idea of masculinity today being a need to be hurt. Badly. Repeatedly hospitalized. The anti-hero is really the anti-hero; he displays his manhood by getting the stuffing kicked out of him. See the movie, this concept is demonstrated much more lyrically therein.
Bad thing 1: The end. Which so many others like. I've seen the movie a few times, and each time I consider liking the end, but I then remember why I didn't like it the first time- because it doesn't belong in this movie, it belongs in other movies. In fact, it is in several other movies, I've noticed, especially in the last few years. I won't say any more.
There is one good thing within the bad thing: The very last scene. Operatic revisitation of the haunted black comedy from the beginning.