Solid character study and a good performance from Norton

Rating: 6/10 (24 February 2015)

"Fight Club" is an Academy Award nominated (sound effects) movie from roughly 15 years ago starring Edward Norton (a two-time Academy award nominee at under 30), Brad Pitt, Meat Loaf and Helena Bonham Carter. It's possibly the most famous movie from director David Fincher, although it's far from his best in my opinion. That does not mean it's a bad film. Not at all. However, many of the characters are simply way over the top that the film always is in danger of surpassing the fine line of entertainment and ridiculousness. It's based on a Palahniuk novel and the script comes from Jim Uhls, who had a surprisingly insignificant career after coming up with the words for this cult film.
The dialogs are witty and almost too hip occasionally. It's not a film for easily offended people as it tends to be vulgar at times and the violence is graphic frequently, although that is certainly not a surprise for a film titled "Fight Club". In general, it's a pretty insane film, most of the time in a good way. The fact that two characters visit meetings of dying people, so they can feel better says it pretty much all already. I clearly preferred Norton over Pitt here and it is self-explanatory that Pitt did not get a single awards nomination for his work here. He becomes pretty much a caricature at times. Then again, his character does not really exist, so this can be used as some kind of apology I guess. The final plot twist comes unexpected and reminded me of the one in "The Usual Suspects", only that the main character is still unaware of his true identity. By the way, Norton looked pretty much the same age in this film as now 15 years later when he scored another Academy Award nomination for his work in a Best Picture winner.
The ending was pretty great though and I liked how, with the disappearance of Pitt after the gunshot, we finally see also the darker side of Norton's character when he and Bonham Carter's character watch the explosions. But how did that gunshot do so little damage? Did the pain make Pitt's character go away? Anyway, "Fight Club" is a good movie. Not one of my personal favorites, but an entertaining 140 minutes, during which it almost never drags. One of my favorite scenes was near the end at the police station when he gets interrogated and almost emasculated. That was pretty funny there. Recommended.