Jon Monsarrat review: too arty, too violent, mindless & awful

Rating: 2/10 (27 May 2002)

I won't spoil the plot for you if I say that "Fight Club" is about guys who like to fight each other, no holds barred. I'm an action movie buff, so I thought it might be fun and cartoony. I like Jackie Chan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc. But I hated this film.
The violence is very real and awful. There is a lot of pretentious art crap (such as Brad Pitt appearing for brief flickers of time), and the film is similar to war films whose sole purpose is to show you the horror of war. I've got enough problems without psychological trauma, thank you very much.
Plus, the characters are incredibly unbelievable. When you fight someone in real life and do real damage, the human reaction is you go to a hospital, you think ow ow ow ow, and you think I'd better stop fighting. No. These guys eat it up and turn it into a hobby. That's psychopathic.
Who should see this film:
-- film school types: go crazy, have a blast watching the blood
-- action movie types with a strong lack of empathy for suffering. And stay away from my daughter.
Sorry, but at least I've stated some intelligent reasons for giving Fight Club a worst-of-the-worst 1 out of 10.