Style over substance.

Rating: 3/10 (21 March 2003)

This is a good example of what happens when people who've been reading comic books and watched better movies all their lives get to make their own. I may be wrong in my assessment of David Fincher's adolescent pursuits but the point I'm trying to get at is that there is very little articulate and nothing even remotely original about "Fight Club". Both conceptually and visually it seems to be one big incoherent, messy smorgasbord of Orwell, early '90s MTV, Kubrick, punk, etc, etc.
When all the unnatural 'coolness' (jump cuts, hipper than thou narrative, flickering images) is stripped away, what you're left with is a bunch of half-ass, unfinished ideas about capitalist social order, human nature, battle of the sexes, meaning of life in a modern world, male frustration etc. And in a movie that chooses to treat its characters solely as metaphors rather than to tell a story, it's especially important that at least a shred of uniqueness in point of view is present. As it is, "Fight Club" doesn't even seem to have a coherent point of view about the subjects it touches on, other than maybe "go let it out" or "if it feels good do it". Yeah man, rock'n'roll!!!
It begins with nameless character (played by Edward Norton), known in credits only as Narrator, spiritually and physically beaten 30-year-old professional fighting insomnia and seeking a way to reconnect with the world, although I doubt he was ever properly connected to begin with. He is engaged in a losing battle with life he chose (although judging by his misery you'd think somebody else chose it for him). Battle that's fought on modern day yuppie frontlines - corporate offices, airports, his expensive IKEA decorated condo, airline first class, business trips etc., and is in desperate need of something. Watching from aside one would think that something is emotional comfort, meaning, love or a thing along those lines. Whatever it is, he seems to have found it, albeit briefly, in various disease support groups that he now starts to frequent pretending to have different ailment or disease for every day of the week. Listening to people, in some cases dying, open up about their problems gives him a visceral sense of freedom. Suddenly he can sleep and enjoy life again. "I let go. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom", he reasons. Until..Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) strolls into his life and messes all of that up. She, you see, is also a 'tourist' - someone pretending to be sick - and the knowledge that another person like him is present at these meetings bothers our Narrator to the point that his insomnia returns. He confronts her about that and to avoid running into each other they divvy up the meetings in a lame exchange that tries to be funny but only ends up resembling something Rachel and Chandler might say to each other on 'Friends'.
The story then shifts to Narrator's relationship with a strange but fascinating fellow named Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) with whom he hits it off on a plane during a business trip. Their bond intensifies after Narrator returns home and finds his condo blown to smithereens as a result of an electrical malfunction. Having no family or friends to turn to in a time of need, he calls Tyler and soon moves in with him in a boarded-up apocalyptic house. On Tyler's insistence they found a weekly fight club that starts up as a jealously guarded secret clique where a few young males can nurse their anxieties and frustrations by beating each other to a bloody pulp!? Bingo! This is what Narrator has been looking for all his adult life.
Soon, though, the whole thing grows in popularity, Marla makes a return, Tyler's behaviour takes stranger turns and problems start to pile up. It is during this part that the movie makes its various cheesy points. Case-in-point the scene in which Tyler ambushes a convenience store, takes the clerk outside, points a gun to his head and under a threat of death forces him to go back to college. Wow, symbolism overload!!! And how deep, too!
The rest of the movie seldom gets better than that including a sketchy ending that features a crucial fist/gun fight, a bomb with obligatory display counting down and other such things no true Hollywood action movie can do without.
In the end I kinda felt like I watched an extended commercial/music video that made me think of Spike Jonze. Then I learned David Fincher also directed music videos. And although this was more viewable than Jonze's dismal "Being John Malkovich" it's still a pretty mediocre offering. Those who refer to "Fight Club" as a masterpiece probably also consider Eminem and Fred Durst to be the modern generation's sharpest voices.