Fight Club
2.5/4
Starring: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf
Rated R for Disturbing and Graphic Depiction of Violent Anti-Social Behavior, Sexuality and Language
"Fight Club" is a mixture of brutal violence, philosophy and film noir. It contains elements of "The Matrix," "Office Space," and "My Dinner With Andre." Needless to say, this is not a boring movie. Overlong, yes, but it's still interesting.
A man (Norton) is living with insomnia. He's going through each day like it's deja vu. His doctor blows him off and tells him to go to support groups to know what real pain is. Surprisingly, the culture of honesty and openness is therapeutic and he gets addicted. That fizzles out when he meets another support group tourist named Marla Singer (Carter), who becomes distracting. One night, after one of his numerous and dehumanizing business trips, he comes home to find that his apartment has exploded. He gives a call to a man he met on an airplane, whose views on life he found provocative. They meet for beer, and this man, Tyler Durden (Pitt) tells our hero to hit him as hard as he can. Needless to say, the unnamed man is both skeptical and disbelieving, but he does what he is told. It hurts, but he feels alive. They begin a "fight club," where man can release all the anger and frustration pent up inside by the constraints of modern society. Things are going great. The Narrator is becoming less of a doormat, and he's earning respect. But Tyler has far greater plans than this...
The theory presented by Tyler is that modern day society is so oppressive that we have become numb to any emotion at all (echoes of Andre's philosophy). We are cogs in a machine and nothing else. It's dehumanizing and the only way to break free of it is to fight. Pain will free you.
I can see his point, although I wouldn't take it that far. How monotonous it must seem to go into an office filled with gray cubicles, sit at a computer all day and push money around online for a living. "Office Space" skewered this with hilarious results, but "Fight Club" is not a comedy. Far from it in fact. It's a grim, bleak and violent motion picture.
The acting is terrific. Edward Norton, an actor capable of electrifying performances (like in "American History X") is great as the spaced out doormat. Norton is nicely understated; the Narrator isn't too comical or too dull. He's a wimp, but we can get behind him. Brad Pitt is terrific as Tyler Durden. He's a colorful study in intensity. Tyler is a loose cannon, but an intelligent one. He's always in control, which is increasingly unsettling. Helena Bonham Carter is perfectly icy as Marla Singer, who ends up sleeping with Tyler.
David Fincher has always been a visual director ("The Social Network" aside). There are plenty of visual tricks in this movie, and some of them are pretty cool. The problem is that the film they distance us from the story and characters. The film becomes a thought piece rather than a conventional narrative. That can work for a time, but eventually it wears thin. "Fight Club's" strengths are the beginning and the end. The middle drags a little.
Unconventional and provocative, "Fight Club" is interesting, but not satisfying/
Starring: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf
Rated R for Disturbing and Graphic Depiction of Violent Anti-Social Behavior, Sexuality and Language
"Fight Club" is a mixture of brutal violence, philosophy and film noir. It contains elements of "The Matrix," "Office Space," and "My Dinner With Andre." Needless to say, this is not a boring movie. Overlong, yes, but it's still interesting.
A man (Norton) is living with insomnia. He's going through each day like it's deja vu. His doctor blows him off and tells him to go to support groups to know what real pain is. Surprisingly, the culture of honesty and openness is therapeutic and he gets addicted. That fizzles out when he meets another support group tourist named Marla Singer (Carter), who becomes distracting. One night, after one of his numerous and dehumanizing business trips, he comes home to find that his apartment has exploded. He gives a call to a man he met on an airplane, whose views on life he found provocative. They meet for beer, and this man, Tyler Durden (Pitt) tells our hero to hit him as hard as he can. Needless to say, the unnamed man is both skeptical and disbelieving, but he does what he is told. It hurts, but he feels alive. They begin a "fight club," where man can release all the anger and frustration pent up inside by the constraints of modern society. Things are going great. The Narrator is becoming less of a doormat, and he's earning respect. But Tyler has far greater plans than this...
The theory presented by Tyler is that modern day society is so oppressive that we have become numb to any emotion at all (echoes of Andre's philosophy). We are cogs in a machine and nothing else. It's dehumanizing and the only way to break free of it is to fight. Pain will free you.
I can see his point, although I wouldn't take it that far. How monotonous it must seem to go into an office filled with gray cubicles, sit at a computer all day and push money around online for a living. "Office Space" skewered this with hilarious results, but "Fight Club" is not a comedy. Far from it in fact. It's a grim, bleak and violent motion picture.
The acting is terrific. Edward Norton, an actor capable of electrifying performances (like in "American History X") is great as the spaced out doormat. Norton is nicely understated; the Narrator isn't too comical or too dull. He's a wimp, but we can get behind him. Brad Pitt is terrific as Tyler Durden. He's a colorful study in intensity. Tyler is a loose cannon, but an intelligent one. He's always in control, which is increasingly unsettling. Helena Bonham Carter is perfectly icy as Marla Singer, who ends up sleeping with Tyler.
David Fincher has always been a visual director ("The Social Network" aside). There are plenty of visual tricks in this movie, and some of them are pretty cool. The problem is that the film they distance us from the story and characters. The film becomes a thought piece rather than a conventional narrative. That can work for a time, but eventually it wears thin. "Fight Club's" strengths are the beginning and the end. The middle drags a little.
Unconventional and provocative, "Fight Club" is interesting, but not satisfying/
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