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When I went to Fight Club I didn't know what to expect beyond a challenging film. I went in thinking that there was a real possibility that I would be offended and left with the scarring aftermath of awful or disturbing images. What I ended up getting was a movie that was very dark, very visceral, and very funny. I have heard other reviewers claim that it is nothing more than a celibration of testosterone and that its message is that in order to find oneself a man must beat the living fuck out of another. I can't imagine that the critics who believe this are being intentionally obtuse so I can only conclude that they have no concept of satire and irony.
The story is essentially that of an unnamed Narrator(Edward Norton) who is an insomniac and feels trapped in a world of mail order led consumerism. His job is to investigate car wrecks to determine whether or not a car should be recalled for safety purposes and he hates it. In a last ditch effort to find the sleep he craves, the Narrator begins going to support groups ranging from testicular cancer to lukemia. In these groups he finally finds teh solice he needs and begins to sleep. It all falls apart, however, when he notices a chain-smoking tourist named Marla(Helena Bohnam-Carter) begin to pop up at his meetings and is a perpetual reminder that he himself is a fraud. His entire world begins to fall apart until he meets a Soap salesman on a plane trip named Tyler Durden(Brad Pitt). Durden turns the Narrator's entire life around as the two invent 'Fight Club' a gathering in which men beat the living piss out of each other. To say more about the plot would be to give it away.
It is the knee jerk reaction of a good deal of movie goers, or renters as it will have to be, to skip over this film thinking it is another lame ass fighting tournament movie. To make that assumption would be a mistake. There are themes running through the film that are at times very subtle and at times very obvious and a few that are both at the same time. It is a movie that begs to be watched several times over as each subsequent viewing leads to something new.
Once again, much has been made of the violence, particularly the glorification of it but it is very clear that the overriding message is that violence is not the answer and that the more you rebel against something the more you become it. The men in Fight Club are seeking liberation from the dull metiocrity of their lives, they are looking for ways to rebel, tired of conforming. They find Fight Club, and at first it appears to liberate them but they gradually begin to conform all over again, giving up their very identities in the name of nonconformity. Fight Club is very graphic and very disturbing at times but all htat is part and parcel of the over all message. In the long run, even if you don't agree with the film, even if its message pisses you off, it will make you think. Fight Club will at the very least challenge your ideas on so many things that if absolutely nothing else it will provide a feast's worth of food for thought.
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