Director: David Fincher
Year: 1999
WARNING! This film contains bad language, violence (duh) and nudity. If this isn't for you then you probably shouldn't watch this film.
...you should still read the review though.
The first rule of Fight Club is....damn I just broke the first rule of Fight Club! I mean, there is no Fight Club...crap.
For those of you who have yet to see the cult classic (also known as the people who only know the "The first rule of Fight Club..." line), the story follows a man in his thirties (played by the amazing Edward Norton) with the characteristics of the average everyday man. He works a dead-end job for a "major" car company and lives in a IKEA laden condo with only condiments in his fridge. He suffers from unrelenting insomnia and as a result begins to attend support groups for a range of different illnesses that he does not have: bowel cancer, testicular cancer, tuberculosis and numerous others. That's how he meets Marla (Helena Bonham Carter). During one of his work trips he meets "single serving friend" Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a soap salesman who sees through the pleasantries of small talk.
Despite the film being called Fight Club, it has surprisingly little to do with actual fighting. If you were expecting some higher budget reworking of WWE or UFC, look elsewhere. I mean don't get me wrong, there's a lot of fighting but just not as much as you'd expect. Instead, this film has one of the most amazing plot lines. I love being surprised. Hollywood has become so predictable that I find I immediately fall in love with anything that breaks the stereotype. David Fincher does an absolutely superb job both leading you towards and pulling you away from the twist. Brad Pitt does a phenomenal job with Tyler. My only criticism is that maybe a lesser known actor would have been more convincing as an anti-consumerist. After all Brad Pitt is the personification of consumer society. Every magazine has his face on it, every label wants him to be the poster boy. But if we disregard this fact he actually plays the character incredibly well. Also, it is quite possible that his casting was for the sake of irony. If this was the case then kudos Mr. Fincher. As for Edward Norton, well, I sort of have a soft spot for him. After watching him in Primal Fear and American History X he is close to overtaking Kevin Spacey as one of my favourite actors. He manages to execute timidness and frailty with such conviction and then completely turns it around. I personally think he's an extremely underrated actor. Then there's Helena Bonham Carter. Admittedly, I was incredibly startled when she turned up in the film. I'm so used to seeing her in Tim Burton films that Marla came as a surprise. Of course she assumed the role well. Her natural strangeness and darkness was perfect for the role and after seeing the other potential candidates for Marla (like Reese Witherspoon...what?), HBC was perfect casting.
Fight Club covers a range of excellent themes that act as a social commentary. One of the most pervading themes is consumerism. At the beginning of the film, Norton's character is the picture of American consumer society. It takes the removal of himself from that so-called idealistic life to realise that there was no real need for that "strine green" sofa or the "glass dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof that they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of...wherever". A defining scene is the wrecking of the VW Beetle - a symbol of the 60s youth that became the corporate owners of the 90s. The next big theme is masculinity vs. emasculation. Norton's character is largely emasculated by his job and his lack of success in life. Emasculation reaches it's climax in Bob (Robert Paulsen played by Meat Loaf) who has testicular cancer and "bitch tits". Tyler, however, is the epitome of masculinity. Norton's character progresses from the comfort of Bob's man breasts to release of Fight Club and his sense of masculinity grows. Tyler is the goal. Finally, there's the theme of self-destruction. This takes two forms: self-destruction for the purpose of rebuilding one's self and self-destruction for the purpose of destroying oneself. We can see Norton's character's self-destruction via the initial Fight Club as a sort of death of his old self and a rebirthing of a new, strong self. At the same time, as Fight Club grows, Tyler's dominance runs parallel with Norton's character's ruination.
Fight Club itself is a symbol of rebellion. It takes men away from the humdrum, monotony of daily life and puts them back into a state of primal instinct. The film makes the comment that in our society we are so far removed from our origins as a hunter-gather society. We have become consumers and as a result we have "evolved" to avoid conflict and to bottle contempt. We have fashioned ourselves to exercise restraint and this leads to a huge build up of frustration and tension. Fight Club is a way to let go of those tensions. The members of Fight Club are your average Joes - "we cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep." This shows that it is not the extremities of society that are driven to this kind of violence. It is the everyman. This film makes one of my favourite social commentaries, that situation drives people to do extreme things and that everyone is capable of destruction whether they believe it or not.
This is one of the best films I have seen in a long time. If you are not easily offended by excessive violence, foul language, nudity and...uh...anatomy, you simply MUST watch this film. I am completely baffled by it's lack of Academy Award nominations (sound effects? Really?) but I think in the following years it has emerged as a film defining of the decade. Watch it and watch it again. Believe me, you're going to want to.
KEEP
10/10 (100% deserved!)And just a little extra for those interested, here are some of my favourite quotes!
"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."
"You're the all singing, all dancing, crap of the world."
"The things you own end up owning you."
"I'd like to thank the Academy..."
"I am Jack's inflamed sense of rejection."
"His name is Robert Paulsen"
"We have front row seats for this theatre of mass destruction."
"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."
"We were selling rich women their own fat asses back to them."
"If I did have a tumour, I'd name it Marla."
"Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken."
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