THIS was a fun ride.

Rating: Null/10 (25 November 1999)

Up-Front Admission: My initial desire to see this movie was based solely upon Edward Norton's merit. However, after seeing it, I left with a head rush much akin to the kind of feeling you get after riding a roller coaster after two or three turns on the Tilt a Whirl--very disorienting and highly addictive. This film comes out of nowhere and smacks you on the skull so that you see stars. It's completely disturbing, but you can't look away. Needless to say, it kind of messed with my brain a bit. The acting is first rate, the shots are bizarrely beautiful and the plot line left me reeling and with a strange sense that I had been sleepwalking. Huzzahs and kudos all 'round, as this is a film that yeah, *could* have been about guys pummeling each other senseless and nothing else, but instead rose to a level of macabre and psychologically twisting intensity that I've rarely seen in a film. And this is speaking as the ONLY chick in the theater at the showing that I went to. Not just a guy flick, smart girls with a decent stomach can take the plunge as well.