Dead

Rating: 9/10 (20 October 2016)

Hands down best psycho thriller EVER! From the start, the film is a skittering, self-aware explosion of sight and sound, buoyed along by music from the Dust Brothers and the pleasantly resigned voice-over narration of Edward Norton. Norton's character is simply known as the narrator, but he remains unnamed as the film gets under way. Refusing to name him works on a structural level as well as philosophical one, withholding the twist about his identity until the final act while also allowing him to serve as the ultimate blank slate for the modern male consumer. Both functions are vital to the film's success, since it has to - - and does -- work both as an intelligent, darkly comic drama and as an essay on the culture of its time. The narrator works as an claims adjuster for an automotive company, mindlessly flying around the country to examine crash sites and determine the cost-benefit ratio of recalling badly manufactured cars. This is the world of Fight Club: Society is killing us, but we're still not sure we want to give it up. The narrator's fractured, white-noise existence is wonderfully captured by Jim Uhls' screenplay and Fincher's rapid transitions and cuts and the compelling use of CG effects and digitally overlaid text (most notably as the narrator strides through his apartment, the dollar values for his living room set appearing as he passes). Plagued by insomnia, he winds up crashing support meetings for men with testicular cancer, riveted by their desperation and drawn into their world of struggle beyond repair. Crying into the massive chest of Bob (Meat Loaf), whose pecs had swollen to "bitch tits" from hormone therapy, the narrator finally discovers the peace that comes with running out of options. "This was freedom. Losing all hope was freedom," he says.