Punching through the fog of alienation in the land of packaged meat is no small challenge.

Rating: 10/10 (13 November 1999)

The talent that came together in this movie succeeds in delivering a powerful gut-punch that is both disturbing and affirming. Pitt and Norton are excellent as archetypes of a push/pull many of us feel- between comfortably numb and the stark reality of existence with all its terror and tender sweetness. What didn't come through enough, perhaps (delivered in a number of lines by Pitt but not shown as experience) was just how amplified the sweetness is once we embrace and accept the terror. A movie worth seeing twice, talking about, mulling over and, ultimately, acting on. But how to do that in an urban landscape, without the extremes of fight club, is a puzzle left to sort out alone. Blowing up buildings, of course, is a symptom of, not at solution to alienation. We must embrace our mortality - someone said you must die in some sense to understand your true self.