Directed by David Fincher (Seven), and based on the acclaimed novel by Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club is a powerful film which fuses the highly sensitive issues that haunt its frustrated and confused protagonis

Rating: 9/10 (6 July 2001)

Jack (Edward Norton) is looking for a cure. He suffers from insomnia, from an overdose of Starbucks and IKEA, and from overall apathy. Desensitized by a super-structured life, Jack seeks change by joining a series of support groups for victims of alcohol or cancer, and surrenders himself to the notion of physical pain, emotional release and consolation. His newfound peace, however, is disrupted when the eccentric Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) enters the groups but remains detached; a distraction which threatens to break Jack's secure sense of belonging. Jack's identity crisis is intensified by the introduction of Tyler (Brad Pitt), a soap maker and leader of the "Fight Club", the most violent support group he is tempted to join.
A film about the urge to "reorganize the world" through violence, Fight Club recalls the young "droogs" in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, yet it exchanges the previous film's theatrics for an internalized --or rather, visceral-- aesthetic. Fight Club benefits from a versatile camera, whose extreme close-ups, extreme long shots, worm's-eye view shots, bird's-eye view shots, freeze frames, slow motion and special effects explore the destabilization and the de-structuring of the protagonist's reality.
Fight Club includes one of the greatest, if not the greatest (The Sixth Sense?), twists in cinema history. It is for that reason, that I suggest Fight Club be remembered as a truly great piece of cinematography.