Not so ground-breaking

Rating: Null/10 (8 July 2000)

I'll admit that after watching 'Fight Club' I felt disturbed. Deeply disturbed in fact. I felt like my brain had just engaged in its own personal fight club and had emerged in a battered state. Does this mean that 'Fight Club' is a good movie? Not necessarily, although it does feature some fine acting and a great soundtrack.
Taking a very obvious cue from A Clockwork Orange, Fight Club aims to reshape our conventional views on modern day, capitalist society. While it is successful in showing how dull and lifeless society has become, the end results are mostly of a superficial nature. Seeing two men pummel each other relentlessly is indeed disturbing, as is the movie's cinematography, which includes many stop action sequences and extreme close-ups of faces beaten beyond recognition. However, the questions spawned here are mostly shallow and repetitive, questions such as 'Why do we live in such a consumer-based society that cares only for appearances and glosses over our basic animalistic nature?' However, thought-provoking this might be, it's been asked before and more effectively as well. A Clockwork Orange was more selective and discreet in trying to shock the viewer and in fact, most of the violence and depravity was left to the viewer's imagination. Fight Club, on the other hand, follows the distinctly American trend of leaving nothing to the imagination, lest the audience miss the point director David Fincher is trying to make. Pandering to the lowest common denominator is a far too common occurrence in today's Hollywood, whether it's manipulative melodrama such as Magnolia or the not-so-subtle religious commentary of Dogma. Kubrick's masterpiece and more contemporary pieces such as Mike Leigh's Naked offer far more thought-provoking commentaries on the human condition, with the viewer holding as much responsibility as the director for figuring out what the problem is and how to solve it.

What does separate Fight Club from the rest of the Hollywood scrap heap is an opening 30 minute sequence involving different therapy groups (hilarious and gutting at the same time) and some exemplary acting. Edward Norton plays the part of the business drone at the perfect pitch and pace, allowing his hidden mean streak to slowly but surely emerge to the surface. As for Brad Pitt, well he manages the near-impossible task of making us forget about his Joe Black alter-ego. Hopefully, there will be no more Legends of the Fall or Seven Years in Tibet for us to suffer through. However, both the riveting opening act and the strength of the acting are soon lost in an orgy of violence that quickly distills any point that Fincher is trying to make. Also, it has become a bit passe to see movies where the inevitable 'twist' at the end calls into question our assumptions about what has transpired and how reliable the narrator may or may not be. Ever since Kaiser Soze came out of the closet, scores of films have been scrambling to repeat the formula with increasingly diminishing returns.
In this day of absurdly high movie ticket prices, Fight Club certainly has enough 'bang for the buck' to satisfy most viewers. Yet few people will leave this movie feeling any more enlightened than they did prior to watching it. Most will return to their 9-to-5s and leave the fighting for the weekend.