Technically fascinating, but muddled message-wise

Rating: 4/10 (8 September 2000)

"Fight Club" is worth seeing for its technical feats. Like "Three Kings," it heralds the digital revolution that really emerged in 1999 and promises (or threatens, depending on your perspective) to radically alter cinematic language. But unfortunately, it's mostly style over substance. You'll find fans here and elsewhere praising the film for its message, but it's sometimes hard to tell what "message" they're talking about. Is it the rather easy attack on consumerism? The constant griping about lost machismo? The thread of generational conflict? All these underdeveloped ideas are simultaneously celebrated and undercut by the film, especially as the "fight club" phenomenon started by Tyler Durden/The Narrator spins out of control. Are we to accept anything that comes out of Tyler's mouth? Or are we to see through his rants as the product of a muddle-headed (and maybe crazy) wannabe culture critic? By the time the film's twist becomes clear, its story and philosophy have become so jumbled that everything falls apart. We're left with an impressively made movie without any real heart or soul, as empty as the consumer culture it supposedly critiques. (I can't help but note the fact that this is a big studio, big budget movie with big money stars and a big ad campaign. How sly that it in the end it props up the culture that gave it life.) It's a screen on which angry young men can project their pet obsessions, but for the rest of us it's hollow.