Thought-provoking and inventive (possible spoilers)

Rating: 9/10 (13 January 2001)

It's not often that a major motion picture can be described as above -- and Fight Club is all that and more. It's a highly stylized look at the difficulty people have in connecting to the world around them. The Narrator suffers from insomnia, but in reality he's been asleep his entire life, lullabied by consumerism and low expectations. All that changes when he meets Tyler Durden and a borderline psychotic named Marla.
While the violence is graphic, it is not the end-all and be-all of this movie, and to that extent the title does the movie a bit of a disservice. There are a lot of punches thrown and the screen violence is realistic, but there's very little of any other kind of violence until you get to the last twenty minutes or so. What I find refreshing about it is that the consequences of the violence are shown realistically as well.
*** SPOILERS AHEAD -- BE WARNED! ***
The film is ultimately nihilistic, anti-materialistic, and anti-social; did anyone else note that the initials for Fight Club (FC) were the same used by Ted Kaczynski as the Unabomber in his manifestos? Think of the Unabomber's philosophies and you'll get an idea where Durden is going with his plans.
I will note that the twist at the end (and since "The Usual Suspects", all films have to have an identity twist, don't they?) was telegraphed by the flash appearances of Durden in several early scenes. This may be more apparent when viewing the DVD, as I did. I noticed what I thought was a film flaw, backed up, and ran the scene one frame at a time. This is used in several places in the film, and there's a notable one in the last few seconds, if you're into that kind of thing. It's also set up well in the movie.
An excellent film, somewhat undone by the clumsy handling of the twist, but the performances are first-rate. A dark, funny, and nihilistic adventure for the brave. 9 out of 10.