Many people will not understand this movie, hopefully you will.

Rating: Null/10 (16 October 1999)

Fight Club is not just a film about bloodthirsty men beating each other with clenched fists while rock music plays. In fact, the violence in terms of sparring seems like an afterthought. Edward Norton gives yet another great performance, proving once and for all that he is an acting force to be reckoned with.
Norton has what he perceives to be the perfect life, complete with IKEA furniture, but he hates it any way. The only time he is truly happy is when he is at his support groups. No, Norton doesn't have cancer, and no, he doesn't have a parasite, but he needs to cry and hug in order to feel complete. Along comes Helena Bonham-Carter, who is a "tourist" just like him. He can't cry when she is around, so they split up the groups evenly. However, he stops going to them once his apartment, which housed his IKEA furniture, explodes into the night sky. He stays at Brad Pitt's house, despite only knowing Pitt because he met him on a flight from one nameless airport to another. The two find that through fighting, they begin to get more out of life. If you haven't been in a fight, how much could you really know about yourself? Fight Club goes from Saturday to every day, from local to national, but it isn't enough for Pitt. Pitt wants everybody to be equals and be equal to zero. He proposes to blow up some very important buildings using his "Space Monkey" followers.
In a way, Pitt becomes a fascist anarchist, spewing riddle-filled comments that seem to be against what he stands for and what he doesn't stand for at the same time. Pitt and Norton both are in love with Carter, though Norton will not be one to admit it. Pitt's performance is no where near as good as in 12 Monkeys, but it is good none the less, and Norton is amazing as always. Carter is known for her more higher class work than this, but she plays the white trash goddess amazing well. Fincher's visual style is not only intriguing, but ingenious. He makes the film interesting in ways the book was not.
The ending is well done, but it gets a little sappy in the last two minutes. The film does happen to remind those in the audience that it is just a movie a time or two, which hurts the overall feel, but not enough to damper the quality. Most of the reviews I have seen have been negative, mostly because the reviewers don't understand the simple ironies and just look for reasons to dislike this film. Do not go in expecting to see Pitt and Norton get bloodied up and nothing but that. This is more than that, this is a film of high quality, and ranks among the best of Pitt's, Norton's, and Fincher's careers.