Fight Club




People are always asking me if I know Tyler Durden.

Where to start? I guess the plot will do, though you should know I'm breaking two rules in doing so. Edward Norton plays an average guy in the capitalist machine who happens to have a materialistic obsession and insomnia to boot when we first meet him. Well, that's not exactly true, as we first see where all this is going. Anyway, Norton can't sleep. He stumbles upon support groups, and in using them (literally) he unexpectedly frees himself from his insomnia. Unfortunately, that will be the least of his concerns after he meets Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), who crowds in on his support groups. Then there's the charismatically raucous Tyler (Brad Pitt), who Norton meets on an airplane. Circumstances ensue that wind them up in the same house and each other's lives.

Fight Club starts off pretty drab (though not quite dark) and "trippy" to begin with, but it steadily increases throughout the movie. The atmosphere gets thicker than pea soup, as David Fincher strings us along on this progressively madcap journey through the last few months of Norton's life. Norton and Pitt form Fight Club as a place where they can get a high off beating the crap out of each other and the increasing number of members, all the while glorifying violence. The sweat and blood flies, though Fight Club isn't really the focus of the movie.

Rather it is Norton's new friendship with Pitt's character, whose very existence seems to be contradictory to America's consumerist society. He and Norton spout philosophy that is often coarse but very ... stimulating. That's what really sets Fight Club apart from its many influences (this movie rings synonymous with Brazil and even The Matrix). It continues to challenge throughout the movie and even well after it has said its piece. Few movies come to mind that call the hollow elements of society into such serious light.

The Fight Club itself continues to grow and its activities begin to extend to subversive behavior, leaving Norton to watch things get closer to spilling over. And there are other surprises in the plot that keeps it interesting. Though there's the little question that asks how much of the first half the second half's revelations void entirely. Regardless, even when it's not giving some startlingly crisp observation or something to ponder over, it is also quite funny in a black sort of way.

Edward Norton gives a knock out performance as the nameless narrator whose mood changes with every scene. At times he is liberated and other times he is a slave to what he has helped create, all the while his faintly sardonic voice over keeps tabs on what is going through his head. Brad Pitt gets the more vigorous role, however, as the lively Tyler. Pitt's characteristic typecast of a smug guy with all the right lines fits in perfectly here. And even Helena Bonham Carter pulls off her character, going from the creepy support group stealer to Norton's odd love interest.

This is one film that deserved every ounce of the praise it got. It's a visceral masterpiece that this genre seems to churn out.



-The Gnome