Fight Club
Released: 1999
Director: David Fincher
Trailer
IMDb
To write this review I had to break the first 2 rules of Fight Club… sorry.
The plot sees the narrator (Edward Norton) suffering with insomnia and working a day to day white collar lifestyle until one day, to put his pain into perspective, he starts going to support groups for the terminally ill which helps him cry and ultimately sleep at night.
While at these groups he meets Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), another “tourist”, they develop a sort of dark comedic rapport throughout the film until the true feelings for each other are revealed at the end. But ruining his own charade at the groups he can no longer sleep properly once again. As he tries to find a new means of release, we meet the character Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Brad Pitt does an awesome job of playing a character that is out of touch with the rest of the world while being all knowing about it at the same time. I believe this to be his defining role and haven’t yet seen him top this performance (no not even as Mickey in Snatch). Tyler opens the flood gates of the narrator’s inner insecurities and obsessive nature over his possessions and the lifestyle he leads and ultimately makes him leave that life behind to a more honest and simpler one according to Tyler’s point of view. The release the narrator finds is fighting and by doing so him and Tyler start fight club based upon simple rules and agreements the fight clubs become a tight knit organisation that spans the country but as the members grow stronger and Tyler’s ambitions grow larger the fight clubs concern themselves with bigger “problems” within the world and ultimately plan to fix them in their own way.
I don’t want to give too much of the story away as it will ruin the film but I will say this; don’t watch this film hoping for a all out fighting beat ‘em up experience because you won’t really find it. The whole idea of fight club is something deeper and exposes the consumerism in the modern world.
With great performances by the 3 main characters and excellent cameos from the likes of Meat Loaf and Jared Leto ( 30 Seconds To Mars), Fight club makes for a very enjoyable film experience and will hopefully leave you thinking about things a little differently for a while. This is my favourite film of all time so after reading this it has hopefully inspired you to watch it.
[rating: 5]
