Fight Club: 8/10

Rating: 7/10 (26 November 2002)

In David Fincher's controversial and outstanding Fight Club, Edward Norton plays a person whose name we never find out. He has no life: he has a dead-end job, he orders IKEA furniture mail-order, and he becomes addicted to self-help groups. But Marla Singer (Helena Bohnam Carter) also goes to his groups, and the Narrator's condo gets burned down. And then he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt).
Tyler sells soap. And so the Narrator moves in with Tyler, and they soon find out that they have masochistic pleasures and start a "Fight Club". Every Saturday night people can pummel each other for fun. And the Narrator's life turns topsy-turvey.
Lotsa fights, action scenes, dark humor, and awesome acting. Norton was exceptional as the Narrator. He really brought out the dullness of the character he was trying to show. Great job. Pitt was good but nothing to write home about. He did manage to tell us that he does have some acting talent, but wouldn't be half as famous if he was ugly. Carter really displayed some strong acting here. The supporting cast, including Meat Loaf and Jared Leto, has strong potential (yes, even Meat Loaf!).
There was, in the superbly written script, a lot of dark humor. The early scenes, such as the Narrator and Marla arguing over which groups to attend, had a lot of the humor. The script, which enjoys to have great speeches by Pitt, was so well written. The over narration (which dominates most of the film) was excellent. I can't really describe it, there are no words.
The movie works best when it's at its trippiest. The ending twist (which I unfourtanatly read about before) went out in more directions that I had thought. If there is one major flaw, it is that Fight Club doesn't really have a real plot. The opening part of the film is about the Narrator's life. The second part is the Fight Club. The third part is the scheme that Tyler has to branch off from Fight Club. And the final part is the ending. The excessive violence, in my opinion, was necessary to the movie and I wouldn't have cut anything out.
Fight Club is an extremly entertaining movie with great acting and stunning visuals.
My rating: 8/10
Rated R for strong violence, language, terrorist acts, and some sexuality.