a misunderstood masterpeice.

Rating: Null/10 (1 September 2000)

David Fincher is a genius.
Fight Club was, amazingly, one of the most contriversal movies to be released in 1999, and admitably I can see, to an extent, where at least a fraction of it's detractors were coming from.
Fight Cub is a challenging movie. you, as a viewer, need to look past it's disturbing aspects and topics and see what they're getting at, not what they're showing. without this valuable skill, many viewers will find Fight Club to a be a pro-violence, glamourized, confusing and ultimatley disapointing film, as many have said already. but scrape away the surface a bit...
Fight Club is about a man who has insomnia. tired of his repeated bouts with the illness he becomes obsessed with doing certain things: shopping from catalouges and ultimatley at support groups for horrible ailments and conditions he will probably never have. he goes to cancer supportgroups ad learns guided meditaton and group therapy. and once again he can sleep. but suddenl he discovers another "tourist" in his midst and can no longer sleep. Marla Singer, his female doppleganger, drives him to insomnia again. after his apartment explodes hetakes room and board with a freind he met on an airplane, Tyler Durden, in a crumbling Victorian mansion. and that is only the start of a frenzied and dark sprial into oblivion.
Fight Club is both a biting satire, dark comedy, and sick drama. the "Jack" character's narration provides some of the film's best lines as he plunges into the depths of.. well.. you'll see.
Edward Norton is brillant as the nameless insomniac, as is Brad Pitt as the feirce, charming, and insane Tyler Durden. Helena Bonham Carter breaks free of her Victotrian period ladies as Marla Singer, and even Meat Loaf is notable as the most touching and oddly fascinating character in the film. but the real star is the script, adapted by Jim Uhuls from a Chuck Phalanuick novel that rockets faster and faster into the depth of human depravity and eventual submission.
and, unlike the Sixth Sense, which had a similar "twist", this movie doesn't end simply as a chap trick.. it takes that twist and turns it 180-degrees, making it both a belivable and plot-enhancing element.
Fight Club is possibly the best film of 1999,but it is hard to choose, given it's peers (American Beauty, Being John Malcovich, Magnolia..), but this *was* the Most Under-Rated Movie Of 1999.