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Chuck Palaniuk’s Fight Club, published in 1996, depicts a tale of a jaded middle-class worker’s intense discontents through a non-linear, pseudo-schizophrenic perspective as the protagonist’s sense of identity is split by social stratification, consumerist commodification and his anxiety of manhood, which result in a series of anarchic sabotages against commercial constructions performed by the cult Fight Club. George Bataille mentions in his notable essay The Accursed Share that expenditure is un-avoidable in the capitalistic society since “the circuit of cosmic energy” has to seek a way to expend in excess, same is violence or non-procreative sex. 1980s is the decade when the discussion of postmodernity permeated with topics as human alienation deteriorating into personal fragmentation. The nineties coming after the cynic, materialistic eighties is a decade populated by slackers who recuperate the seventies sass of anti-establishments. And that is the time when Palahniuk’s Fight Club releases. Universally sentiment is an inevitable human emotion, but in a de-humanized society which demeans the course of sentimentality, how shall you vent your sentiments appropriately? And suppressed sentiments shall regurgitate and reincarnated into a relentless wave of expenditure as volcano finally erupts after denying itself proper emission for a long while.

Sentiment is also a quintessential human emotion which needs to be channeled out through catharsis as ancient Greek Tragedies serve its rinsing effect to the audience. David Punter mentions the idea that popular fiction provides the society with temporal nurtures toward the wounds inflicted by industrialization/modernization. Fight Club in the nineties is the work as such serving its nurture to the reading public through its non-catharsis since sentiment has been made obsolete in the postmodern stage as the wishes of apocalyptic expenditure have been embodied through shock which functions as a substitution of catharsis. In a brief, anarchy here also performs as the expression of sentiments through a poise of non-sentiment despite this expression of sentiments could only be made through fictionalized apocalypse which will never been put into actuality. In other words, the reader is simply satisfying his/her ravenous appetite for destruction in a surrogate form while society remains its status quo as Starbucks maintains its monopolization of global markets. Conclusively, Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club is merely an attitude of wish-fulfilling sentiments devoid of any activist agency to impose any concrete, actual change upon the society, i.e. a nurture for slacker youths’ wounded sentiments.

Fight Club (1999) directed by David Fincher and based off of Chuck Palahniuk’s book entitled “Fight Club” stars Brad Pitt, Edward Norton Jr, and Helena Bonham Carter.

This is the film that sets the bar for every other movie I watch and it has yet to be beaten. It is a perfect film in my opinion for multiple reasons and I will break down the top 3 because otherwise this review would go on forever.

1) The Story. Chuck Palahnuik is one of my favorite fiction writers of our time, so I had a high bar set for this movie before even seeing it, and I was so blown away at the way they integrated the book into this movie I was speechless at the end. If you think of it as a smoothy, they made the absolute perfect combination of hollywood action and staying true to the book, the theme, and the characters. It was like the greatest smoothy you’ve ever tasted where no one taste overpowers the next. They did take some liberties with the ending, but I enjoyed what they did with it so it didn’t even bother me. Everything about the story and the way they told it was perfect in my opinion.

2)The Acting. I am a huge critic on the acting in movies, and if a movie has bad acting it’s hard for me to watch it without feeling detached. That being said, I have not seen a better performance by literally every single actor in the movie. There was a flow to the interactions that happened because of the amazing chemistry between the actors, and to go back to the book, each actor was perfectly casted for the role. Edward Norton plays the best satirical and black humor loving character I’ve seen in a movie and he fits the role of the narrator flawlessly. Brad Pitt brings to the table the pretty boy that Tyler Durden is, but he also brings a certain charisma to the table that is quite possibly the most memorable character in all of cinema. Helena Carter also gives the performance of her career and really makes you feel almost sorry for her. All these personalities on screen would butt heads in any other movie, but the flow between the actors is truly remarkable.

3) The cinematography. Anyone who’s seen this film will tell you that the effects and hidden images throughout give the movie some of the best atmosphere in any film. The way the camera shakes from time to time along with how well what’s happening on screen relates to the narrating and the music it draws you in and never lets you go. Every time I watch this I’m glued to the T.V. and I find new things wether in the background, or in the way it was filmed that I hadn’t seen before. The way it was filmed is a part of the story in itself, and coupled with the amazingly poetic and satirical piece of literature it’s based off of gives you a sense of how creative and artistic this movie really is.

So, if this seems like a long and drawn out praise, that’s because it is. I can’t find myself saying anything bad about this movie. In my mind it is a perfect piece of film.

If this movie were hooked up to a heart monitor, I’m sure the machine would be out of order cause this movie got me pumped up that I was almost out of order. At first I thought this would be some disposable light entertainment but it kept on proving me wrong little by little as I kept on watching. I really like the idea of friends fighting, I remember doing that as a kid and we’d say “mercy” to quit, but this one kid kept on ignoring me as he was pulling my leg, but that feeling was like being a wet towel getting twisted out of every drop in your body. This movie takes it too far with the fighting, not to mention some other despicable parts I wasn’t fond of, but that doesn’t really matter much when the next scene involves something crazy like people in a car about to crash into a truck or flying on a plane that explodes in half. It kept on accelerating with intensity until it reached its height with the ending which was the perfect jump off the peak back to my ground state. I also now have a renewed fondness for the Pixies .

If we are to take Fight Club as a culture artifact rather than just a movie, then it may well be among the most successful and important films ever. Debate over its intention, use, and meaning continues to rage, but it’s that very debate that has kept it alive and revealing.
In particular, Fight Club is an important tool in understanding the male mindset of the late 90s and its relation to the media. On the outset it’s a morality tale against the dangers of corrupt capitalism. But there is more at work here and discussion on the film could well go on as long as people care about the movies.
It’s fair to say that Fight Club isn’t a film for everyone, especially so those repulsed by violence. But many of the critics who have chastised the film for its violence have missed the point. Entertainment Weekly embarrassingly gave it a ‘D’ and gave The Story of Us an ‘A-’ in the same issue, while The Boston Globe, TimeOut, and Premiere were among those who gave it good marks. Curiously, women seem to respond to the movie better than men. This may be because of the movie’s very concentration of masculinity. It proved too hard for men to look from within. Men too were slower to get that Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), the underground leader of “fight clubs,” was a character to be repulsed by.
The best way to understand Fight Club is to understand the consumer-driven late 90s. If anything, the significance of the film has become more evident as the years progressed. Fight Club is a biting satire that doesn’t shy away from the issues dominating American minds in the late 90s: commercialism, male alienation, corporate greed, the malaise of Generation X, depression, and violence. But unlike other films of the year (American Beauty comes to mind), Fight Club doesn’t deal with these issues in a glib and pedantic manner. It confronts them brutally with a wicked urgency. Sometimes it takes a satirical turn, and sometimes it makes people uncomfortable, but all the time it alerts us that something was really wrong with our society.
Of course, when you have a movie that deals with controversial topics this bluntly, the result will be polarizing. Fight Club inspired a lot of debate, which is something every good movie should do. It’s very much a love-it-or-hate-it movie, but many who loathe it seem to think that it praises violence through the character of Tyler Durden. Paradoxically, some fans of the film also take Tyler to be the hero. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. Fight Club is clear in its disapproval of Tyler. While harshly criticizing the consumerist society that compromises the narrator’s (Edward Norton) life in the beginning, it soon becomes obvious that Tyler’s solution is a dangerous alternative. He becomes just as bad as or worse than the society he rebukes, becoming a fascist and misogynist underground leader capable of murder and destruction. Director David Fincher’s point is that the danger and tragedy of a consumer driven society is that it can give rise to people like Tyler Durden.
In fact, Fincher said in an interview that while Tyler appears attractive at first in order to show why a guy like the narrator (who, by the way, is supposed to be a disturbed and unsympathetic character) would be seduced by him, he intended for audiences to applaud Tyler’s demise. Both the camps that hated and loved the film often seem to miss this point.
Fight Club is equipped with some of the best actors of our time. Edward Norton is fantastic as the dull and immature narrator, who has the audacity to compare his minor problems like insomnia with those of people in support groups. Tyler Durden may well be the most difficult role Brad Pitt has ever pulled off and yet he manages to create one of the most unforgettable characters in recent years. To many it was a shock to see Pitt as Tyler Durden during his teen idol years. Helena Bonham Carter is just as mesmerizing as Marla, the disturbed girl the narrator meets at a support group session. In some ways, Marla is the stand-in for female viewers of this film, who can identify the immaturity of male Generation X-ers. Her relationship with the narrator plays like a romantic comedy in disguise. They are obviously right for each other but their eyes are clouded. Even Meat Loaf (who has a habit of appearing in weird movies ever since The Rocky Horror Picture Show) brings some sparkle to his appearance. Collectively, they help create a film that knocks the senses and fires up testosterone. But this is a bait and switch, because as it progresses, Fight Club becomes a warning of misguided masculinity.
Fincher shot the movie in cold and sterile hues of blue and green to create a dark image of society and business travel. The narrator’s job in a car insurance company has desensitized him. He examines totaled cars in which people were killed to evaluate the model and decide, based on cost, whether to recall the vehicle (sadly, many car companies still do this). Norton’s opening narration reveals the character’s immaturity and addresses many of the insecurities of the late 20th century. Not only is he a pathetic loser who has to go to support groups so that he can recognize real pain (and not his trivial worries such as what dinning set defines him as a person), but he is also a hypocrite who scolds Marla for doing the same thing. During the movie, the narrator consistently blames his trouble on women.
The narrator’s old life is destroyed when his apartment (filled with IKEA furniture) blows up and he begins a new chapter when he moves in with Tyler, a mysterious soap salesman he met on a plane. Their early talks in the neighborhood bar about the state of consumerism are evocative of the millennium’s end. Now, a lot of the things Tyler says make sense (like his remark that the stuff you own will end up owning you). But this doesn’t make him a hero. Rather, he becomes a monster. The final revelation about Tyler clears the seeming contradiction. Fincher is commenting that unchecked capitalism can give rise to alter-egos like Tyler Durden.
Throughout, there are signs that Tyler isn’t real (for instance, he calls the narrator back on a pay phone). It’s hard to notice how brilliantly layered the clues are in just one viewing. The most insightful one is that even Tyler’s house is a symbol of the narrator’s decaying mental state.
The narrator’s depression and need for Tyler can be explained not just by the era, but by observing his generation. Generation X-ers were the first children of accepted divorce and the narrator (unnamed because he can stand for any man of his time and place) carries a Freudian animosity toward his father for leaving him. Creating a fight club with Tyler is his way of rebelling against his father’s expectations.
But as the movie gets trippier, we begin to see the danger of following Tyler. The first sign is the hand burning scene, in which Tyler equates pain with enlightenment. He’s a quasi-fascist control freak just as dominant and soul-sucking as any corporation. But the narrator falls farther and farther under Tyler’s influence. He becomes emotionally abusive toward Marla and the movie reveals that he blew up his own condo.
It is easy, however, to see why someone would initially like Tyler. Not only is his free-style approach to life appealing (he makes a living out of selling soap made from liposuction fat), but the dude is also a philosophical genius. He does make the narrator stronger. As a man coming of age in the post-Dr. Spock era, Tyler does come across as the best medicine for depression.
How ironic that Tyler becomes as oppressive as the institutions he fights against. The fight club itself becomes something of a company when it spirals into “Project Mayhem”. This is a case of out with the old boss and in with the new in more ways than one. If we are to take Tyler Durden as a projection of the narrator’s father, we can see that very little has changed for the narrator since his parental abandonment. If it’s true that the narrator secretly longed for his father’s approval and, having failed to obtain it, modeled Tyler after his father in hopes of a second chance, then the outcome is truly a depressing one.
Structurally, Fight Club is set like the typical story of an interesting friendship: a loser falls under the spell of a bad influence. But beneath the fabric, Fight Club hoards a trove of socio-historic implications. A look beneath the film’s surface reveals a look at a millennial nightmare.

A twisted adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club: Fight Club:

I wish I could have seen this on the big screen since the cinematic value of this film is really high. Definitely one of the best films in its genre. Edward Norton and Brad Pitt both do a phenomenal job getting us in the feel of things.

The narrator tries to break his shell to break free from the ordinary life, he copes with delusions and paranoia and a strong dislike for a woman named Marla.

There is a stunning blending of Anarchy, Rebellion and Dark Humor in this movie. Everything that is talked about in Fight Club is almost applicable to our lives which makes the movie more tangible. Rejection also plays a big part on how the movie feels we can feel the frustration of the narrator throughout the film.

The way how the narrator is getting away from ordinary life is captured really well, the plot is extremely progressive and then we see the downfall clearly. Some imagery also gives you the feel of the 90’s.

It’s one of the films that you will want to watch over and over again.

Based on Chuck Palahniuk’s novel of the same title, David Fincher‘s Fight Club is probably one of the most shocking and thought-provoking films of the 90‘s. Starring Edward Norton as the narrator and Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, Fight Club depicts a man‘s fight against the society that is in many ways corrupted and stuck in a mundane lifestyle of work-buy-consume-die.

The film focuses on, as the narrator states himself, ‘a very strange period’ of his life. He is working in one of the major car companies and is engaged in buying the most chic and expensive furniture for his luxurious apartment. By buying, the narrator attempts fill the emptiness in his life but no material goods can ease his misery, so, the narrator suffers from insomnia and depression. Following the advice a doctor gave him, the narrator starts attending self-help meetings for patients of incurable diseases which seems to help, but only to a certain point. Still believing that his life is incomplete, the narrator meets a complete antagonist of himself – Tyler Durden, a man who seems as if he could not care less for anything but himself. They establish a fight club for men seeking inner harmony, as violence and pain help to bear the pressure and misery they feel. Soon, the fight club begins to grow and becomes a destructive force fighting the rotten society – project Mayhem.

Fight Club suggests a lot of ideas that could really reverse the way many people think. It denounces the mass culture, materialism and suggests a new way of living, based on anarchy and chaos. Even though such measures might seem too radical, the film proposes a view that a civilization that is built on capitalistic ideology is no less wrong. Fight Club is extreme in a way that both alternatives it suggests seem to be very drastic – we either live lives that consist of mindless buying and selling or destroy any industrial civilization and become free of money. A viewer would probably find both choices unacceptable, but this harsh contrast leads to catharsis, after which a person can start seeing their life in a completely different way and be inspired to change.

I would thoroughly recommend this film to anyone who has ever felt frustrated about the modern society and its distorted values. The gripping storyline, magnificent performances of the actors, astounding special effects and perfectly selected soundtrack send a powerful message to a viewer that cannot be easily dismissed and forgotten.

Corría el año 1999 y yo andaba hasta los cojones con el último año en el liceo. Durante los últimos dos lapsos, para escapar de la monotonía escolar, opté por fugarme 3 de los 5 días hábiles al cine continuado que empezaba todos los días a las 10 am.

Esa rara avis que existía antes de los multiplex que tenemos ahora.

Vi grandes películas (American Beauty, The Matrix) vi películas decepcionantes (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace) y vi El Club de la Pelea.

Recuerdo claramente que fue en una sala del desaparecido Cine Avila. Era el único en la sala. Para ese entonces el internet era para muchos un lujo, pero en mi caso sencillamente no existía. Así que mi conocimiento sobre la película era completamente nulo.

La película fue una verdadera bofetada. Durante muchas escenas me encontré mirando a mi alrededor sin poder creer que seguía solo en la sala, estaba sorprendido de ser el único viendo aquella monstruosidad. Me sentía privilegiado. Y a la vez sentía compasión, casi lastima, por el mundo fuera de esa sala que no tenía la dicha de ver lo que yo estaba viendo. De pensar lo que yo estaba pensando.

Durante el último acto de la película una vaina era clara: al cine había entrado una persona y al terminar los créditos iba a salir una totalmente distinta.

Y así fue. Cuando la encargada del puesto de cotufas me preguntó que tal era la película. NO me atreví a resumirla en palabras, cualquier intento hubiese sido en vano. En cambio le dije que la vería nuevamente ese mismo día, y así fue.

Para hacer la experiencia más placenteramente surreal, el cine no era muy distinto al mismo donde trabajaba Tyler. De hecho durante esa escena en particular comencé a mirar hacia el proyector. Así de involucrado estaba con la película.

El Club de la Pelea es sencillamente ese tipo de cine que te habla. Tu finalmente tomas la decisión de si escuchas el mensaje o no. Aunque veo harto difícil resistirse.

La vaina fue tan genial y traumatizante que cuando salí de la sala y el sol del mediodía me dio en la cara la sensación fue similar a cuando Neo vuelve a su “mundo” sabiendo que no es más que The Matrix trabajando. Con todo y la gente caminando en cámara lenta.

Pero lo más coño e’ madre y desasosegado del asunto es que casi 10 años después el mundo no parece ser distinto. Prácticamente vivimos en un perpetuo estado como el descrito por El CLub de la Pelea.

Como dice un viejo amigo: “I’ve got news for you pal, you ain’t leadin’ but two things, right now: Jack and shit… and Jack left town.”

Forget about fucking Se7en, Fight Club is David Fincher’s masterpiece.

There’s no doubt that Fight Club is one of my favorite movies. Its attractive and original style, its trapping story, its performances, its ending and its message turn this sequence of images with sound into an authentic masterpiece. I consider this film to be one of the best of all times.

Fincher tells us the story of an unnamed character (the narrator) who has entirely devoted to his job and whose life completely lacks of meaning. This guy, who is very well interpreted by Edward Norton, suffers from insomnia and can’t find the solution to his problem. He becomes addicted to attending support groups and pretending to be a victim, which at first seems to be the cure to his sleeping disorder, but the presence of another impostor named Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) ruins everything; Norton starts feeling uncomfortable. The narrator meets the man who is going to help him solve his problem, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Durden will try to open Edward’s eyes; he will teach him how to leave everything behind, how to forget about the material stuff in order to discover the meaning of his life. They will co-found an underground club known as Fight Club.

This film is the story of us, the story of everyone. This is a love tale that, camouflaged by a critic to capitalism and consumerism, talks about the pursuit of happiness, talks about finding the right person, the person that takes out our best selves. It is a story that strengthens values such us compromise, conviction, devotion, determination and love.

Five-star movie.

A masterpiece and great adaption of Chuck Palahniuk’s story. It is an extremely relevant film that takes a stand on commercialism and materialism. It is flawlessly acted by Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, who obviously put a lot of time and effort into getting their characters down 100%. It has a great visual style from David Fincher, who made this film so unique and distinct in tone. It is presents a blend of genre’s that make for a wide range of emotions throughout.

I just recently re-watched Fight Club for the first time in a year or two. This makes about ten viewings since my first viewing when it was playing in theaters in late 1999. I am pleased to report my 2011 assessment that Fight Club remains the most grossly overrated film of my lifetime. Have you ever been stuck in a conversation with some smug, cynical, 15 year old half-wit know-it-all who likes to spout off paper thin slogans and hackneyed, pseudo-Nietzschian platitudes, trying desperately to convince everyone how deep and worldly and knowing he is. His insightful philosophy of life is summed up in the statement, “life sucks then you die,” since they usually get off on a shallow understanding of the bleaker aspects of Existentialist philosophy. The sad truth is that his whole world and all of its clever insights are no bigger than the peanut sized brain he carries around in his thick head. For this person the great villain is always society, or corporate consumerist culture, these great, personified abstractions that always work as a convenient scapegoat for those who hate their lives and need to see themselves as victims. That is what watching Fight Club is like. It is a big, loud, obnoxious eye-roller of a film all full of sound and fury and yet saying something so trite and base that the biggest disappointment comes from the realization that you’ve just spent the better part of two and a half hours of your life going from point A to point A. How this film has become the perceived “classic” that it has with its legions of hardcore fans is one of the great mysteries of the modern world. I thought Fight Club was a lousy film when I saw it 11 years ago and my opinion hasn’t changed one bit.

Fight Club does have some strange, psychic appeal though. I enjoy talking about the film and, to a certain extent, watching it. Don’t get excited Fight Club fans, this is not a concession by any means. The only concrete fact about Fight Club that can be drawn from all these years of viewing it is clearly that I’m right and everyone else is wrong! I will acknowledge the impact that Fight Club has had on its fans; I just question what it is specifically that they took from it. In 11 years I have not heard a single adequate or even articulate response to the question “what’s so good about the film?” The typical response is either going into an interminable laundry list of the films technical merits or these vague, abstract statements such as, “it makes you think” or “it’s so deep.” I don’t know how most people watch films but my brain is as actively engaged in I Spit on Your Grave as it is on Gone with the Wind; it is only my final opinion of the films that vary. So the “it makes you think” argument has always seemed ridiculous to me. And there’s the “you just don’t get it” retort which I don’t bother even listening to. Then there’s the kiss of death response that I get when I tell fans that I dislike the film: “read the book!” I have never read a book that has in any way influenced my opinion of a film. Film is film; literature is literature. I may read the book someday but I do not expect to experience some sudden revelation as a result. I can think of more interesting way to spend my time than reading a book to a movie I don’t like very much to begin with. I suspect, based on the DVD commentary and interviews I’ve read with Chuck Palahniuk, that he’s just as clueless about what specifically Fight Club is about as everyone else. It’s a jumbled, unfocused assembly of disconnected ideas, rants about modern society, the jolly fun of being a member of a cult, learning to love yourself, and some supposedly weighty zingers to blow people’s minds like “It’s only when we lose everything that we’re free to do anything.” Really it’s about a bunch of whining, emasculated men, raised by women, who were forced (presumably by that personified, consumerist culture villain) to buy Ikea furniture. The only way they can gain a sense of self worth is by joining a cult and pounding on each other every weekend. Poor guys thought they were going to be movie stars and rock gods one day…

I must say that the performances are quite good, as much as they can be, and the movie looks fantastic. And the first act of the movie is moderately amusing and has some neat visual gimmicks (I mean that in the least endearing way possible). As soon as the fighting begins is when the movie gets lost in a sea of its own self-importance. It gets progressively worse as it goes along – more silly, more absurd, and worst of all, more piously self-serious. The technical qualities of the film deserve praise but that will only get it so far. Fight Club is beautifully shot but with such ridiculous content it’s just pretty pictures. There is an annoying trend to forgive the faults of certain films if it looks nice enough which I think is a bunch of nonsense. I loved the picture book Sir Silver Swine when I was seven years old but that doesn’t put it in the same league as Tolstoy for God’s sake. And the pep talks that Brad Pitt gives throughout the movie, the endless lectures about nothing and the stupid assignments that he gives his cult followers, “project mayhem,” anarchist and terrorist acts of violence and vandalism gets so tiresome after a while. One of the more disturbing aspects of the movie is that the tone with which all of this is presented leads me to believe, despite the sudden turn toward maturation plot ending, that the movie endorses or at least is wildly amused with all of these antics. And we’re all supposed to watch and go, ho-ho-ho. One scene in particular has always bothered me. It’s the scene where brad Pitt and Edward Norton hold a gun to the back of the head of a convenience store employee and coerce him into quitting his job to chase after his dream of being a veterinarian…or die. How are we supposed to feel about that? Is he doing the poor guy a favor? Maybe, maybe not. Either way it’s pretty disturbing. That people would complain about Dirty Harry Callahan being a “Fascist” and find this scene acceptable, or worse empowering, is beyond my level of comprehension. The movie seems to think this is all okay though.

Despite all of this I consider myself to be a big Fincher fan. Fight Club just happens to be his worst film. But hey, even Coppola has Jack on his credits. David Fincher is a very good filmmaker most of the time. When he’s on there are few that can match him. But I think he’s best with straightforward narratives. Plot driven movies like Se7en, The Game, Zodiac, and the underrated Panic Room is what he does best. The Social Network is so straight and lean and to the point yet much more interesting and insightful than Fight Club could ever hope to be. His problem, as I see it, is when he tries to say something profound, to be deep rather than let the material do the work for itself like with this or with the big, bloated The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. With these two movies I feel that there is a profound lack of subtlety. It’s like being screamed at for 3 hours by someone who is really not as smart or as interesting as they think they are. I think he’s a more technical and visually oriented filmmaker and largely intuitive when it comes to thematic concerns therefore his reliance on his thematic intuition, because he doesn’t really know specifically what he’s trying to say, works against him, as in Fight Club. The more focused and straightforward the narrative is that he’s working with the less he has to rely on that intuition because the material largely speaks for itself, and the better the movie comes off.

Fight Club feels like its yelling and screaming at the audience saying, “I’m so hip. I’m so slick and clever. I’m so cool.” My answer is “no, no, and no, and stop screaming at me too!” And frankly, I don’t buy all that garbage about how it’s a satire on consumerism (blah!) as if that alone closes the book on the argument of the film’s value. You know what, any movie with even a hint of irreverent cynicism likes to make the claim of being a satire, that important, critic-proof term that can supposedly transform glossy marshmallow fluff like Fight Club into high art by merely uttering the word. Fight Club may very well be a satire but that certainly doesn’t help it any. I see satire as being more of a defensive move by insecure artists so that if their self-important message doesn’t connect they can always say, “just kidding.” Very few artists pull off satire well. That is the sense I get from Fight Club and 1999’s other overrated, self-important stinker, American Beauty. I have a fantasy version of Fight Club in my mind that is a low budget, B-grade exploitation movie. I don’t know if it would necessarily be better but I do think it would be less full of itself. This Fight Club however is a stinking, steaming pile of animal excrement. For me Fight Club is a very shallow movie, and a lousy movie, that is doing everything it can to convince the audience that it’s as smart as it pretends to be. Unfortunately it is not.

Fight Club is an amusing film, mainly because of the philosophy behind not. Granted, I feel most people (or at least the one’s I know) enjoy this movie because, well, Brad Pitt is beating the shit out of everyone in a dank cellar. David FIncher toys around with the conventional narrative structure, creating stylish scenarios for the discerning voice overs. All in all a well rounded film.

Now let’s dig a little deeper, shall we? One thing that always struck me as odd was how this is everyone and t heir mother’s favorite movie. Like stated above, I know plenty of people back in my youthful days of high school who would go around stating that rule number one of Fight Club is that you don’t talk about Fight Club, how sweet it would be to make a fight club of their own, etc. Pretty much many people viewed it as a manly movie. Funny, since the film is so blatantly homoerotic that it may come off as subtle in a certain way. Sure, there is that scene where Brad Pitt is bathing in a tub naked and Edward Norton is sitting near him while they are both conversing, but how many “straight” men would do that? As Tyler Durden states, “we are a generation of men raised by women.” Norton’s father left him, while Durden’s father is only there to offer him feeble advice. The lack of an alpha-male leads these men to find the next best thing: a male that they can look up to in replace for their absent father. It’s clear that Norton respects Tyler Durden, because Tyler Durden is who he wants to be. This takes the whole “bro” fad to a new extreme.

Another message that is trying to be conveyed to the viewer is about anti-consumerism, which may be hard to believe since they made a Fight Club video game. As Norton states, “my whole life was in that apartment.” As Tyler Durden says, “Only once you have lost everything are you free to do anything.” The deep rooted message here is that society has practically castrated everyone by forcing them to blindly consume, that by consuming more will make you a better person, a much more respective entity. The only way they can break out of this castration is by the underground fight club, where men strip down (very homoerotic) and exchange fists into each other’s faces. It’s through this that they really experience life, by feeling the pain of another helps re-open their mind, that your ying-yang coffee table doesn’t own you, you own you.

Over the years Fight Club has become very much hyped, so it’s understandable if one views this movie and feels disappointed after. However, I think it’s a worthy film in Fincher’s filmpgraphy, and as much as many people may disagree, it is an important film for our generation.

I’ve seen this film at least 80-100 times. Now that that’s out in the open, I would definitely recommend this to any young man who’s trying to figure out his purpose in a post-industrial society (or any woman who wants to figure out said male). Some advice: Take any and all ‘Durdenisms’ with large doses of salt. Also try to put said ideas into the context of the film as a WHOLE. Anyhow, amazing craftsmanship on this film, every little detail was considered and I (obviously) adore it.