Good for a lot more than the plot twist.

Rating: 10/10 (1 January 2005)

Lots of people love Fight Club for the plot twist. Others praise the acting or the dialogue. These three things combine to form a blockbuster movie. It's edgy, intense, it leaves you on the edge of your seat. Or, to sink lower, it's a triumph, and I give it two thumbs up. That's not what makes the movie good.
Fight Club is good because: A. It calls into question modern men and their relationship to women, commercialism, friendship, individualism, identity, sanity, self-image, addiction, and a few billion other things and boils them all down to order and chaos. It doesn't get preachy, either.
B. It has deep, interesting characters.
C. It has really good small stuff.
Preachiness gets old fast, as movies like American History X (another Edward Norton movie) and Signs attest. Fight Club avoids getting preachy by vilifying the preacher (Tyler Durden) and providing lots of different answers to its questions.
The characters are beautifully disgusting. There's Marla, the suicidal sex-fiend, Bob, the steroid-filled man who perfected the art of chest expansion, Tyler, the controlling grungy idol, and many characters with no name but you love them anyway.
But what makes Fight Club shine the most is the small stuff. The music and visuals are synced up with the dialogue perfectly. There's a scene in Edward Norton's condo that has furniture appearing left and right as it's mentioned by Norton. Or in the Reader's Digest scene, Tyler Durden rides a bicycle around in a wet basement without pants on. It's subtle and it works. Even the cheesy Hollywood plot twist towards the end has a subtle meaning, relating back to the premise of a struggle against commercialism.
If you haven't seen this movie, see it. If you have, see it again, and pay attention to the little stuff. It's worth it. 10/10.