Quite a fine way to cap off the century...

Rating: 10/10 (22 March 2000)

I saw 'Fight Club' with no preconceptions of what I was going to be in for, except maybe that it was going to be violent. As all of you who have seen and enjoyed the movie will understand, I ended up enjoying 'Fight Club' immensely.
It is dark, small sections are violent, though in no way manipulatively (ie. Woo films), but it is uplifting. And no, Hitler wouldn't have loved it, he would have hated it.
You see, the way I saw it 'Fight Club' was a movie with a progressive liberal stance. In fact, I'd go as far as saying it was socialist (and I'd appreciate it if the neo-McCarthyism could be stowed where it belongs, in the 50's). The tale was one of two (one?) guys who were disillusioned about the American Way of Life, one knew this to start off with, one learnt it along the way. They had had enough of material possessions replacing substance. They did something about it and it would seem that a large part of working-class (proletariat) American followed. The climactic conclusion of 'Fight Club' was their answer to corporate control of every single aspect of everyone's lives (what car you drive, what job you take, what you watch, read, hear, speak, think, etc etc). True, there was a strong anarchistic element in there too, but on the whole it was an act of empowerment for the proletariat. So in that way it is truly a Christian movie. Jesus condemned those that placed material pursuits above being individuals (ie. all of us).

'Fight Club', and in a similar way 'American Beauty', gave me hope for a better Australia. Things aren't too bad here now, but they could be a whole heap better. Oh, and by the way, the movie is fantastic.