Worthless

Rating: 8/10 (30 June 2002)

I had heard from several people that I should see Fight Club before I reluctantly rented it (I've never been terribly impressed with David Fincher's work). After having finally watched it, I have no idea what they were thinking. Stylistically it was nothing special--for some reason people are impressed by that yellowish tint Fincher seems to love (as seen in The Game). This doesn't do anything special in my opinion--all it signifies to me is that the director wears yellow tinted sunglasses a bit too often. Some of the cinematography was fairly intricate, but nothing that added up to "brilliant" in any way (as many other reviewers seem to think). I'm sure it's not difficult to get good looking shots on a budget of $63 million. In terms of content, Fincher really says nothing of consequence. Who is he to comment on the working class? Does he really find humor in people suffering from cancer? He shows such a bleak, inaccurate view of the life that most people in this country lead and I really don't see the point--is Fincher trying to say that anyone who works 9-5 in order to make a nice home and to support themselves/their families is misguided? Is it hard to see that people are much more complex than any of the characters in this movie? In order to "really live", should we all pour acid on our hands, crash our cars, and beat each other into a bloody pulp? Does Fincher think he's making an intelligent political statement? This lack of insight can be expected from someone whose toughest decision is figuring out which luxury car he feels like driving to the studio in the morning. The only people I can imagine this movie would appeal to are male teenagers/college students with maxed out credit cards who think they know something about film because they've seen Reservoir Dogs. I'm not going to give away the movie, but as many others have noted it has a trick ending that changes the meaning of the rest of the story. This is not unlike what Fincher did in The Game. Personally I find this to be a cheap tactic used in order to get people to see the movie a second time (i.e. The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects), and doesn't make for art or even intelligent entertainment. Fincher should stick to movies like The Game which, while not really that good, don't pretend to be much more than they are--cheap entertainment. I normally don't care at all when a bad film or lousy director make it big--it happens all the time--but it's unbelievable to me that so many people comment on the artistic value of this movie. I'm not really going to complain about the placement of it on the imdb top 250 (because it doesn't matter and there are even worse movies high up on the list), but just take a look at some of the films below this one. There are so many great things to see out there--don't waste your time on this