Fight Club is much like a festering wound. On the surface, it appears to be bloody, rough, dirty, and crude. Yet, when you take a much closer look; you will notice that there is a countless amount of activity commencing. It was directed by the critically acclaimed, David Fincher and written by Chuck Palahniuk. Whether you believe the movie to be good or bad; all can agree that is not just a regular movie. Majority of the critics find this movie to be refreshing and entertaining but there are a few who aren't as impressed. Yet, to many others and I it is not only a movie but also an art. "Fincher is. Art-conscious," (Denby 255).

    In a crowded city of industrial complexes and high-rise, over priced, apartment buildings lives the nameless soul who is the center of the story. This man, for some rationale has not been named, is just another faceless automaton in the corporate workplace. Essentially, Fight Club is a narrator who is working for big business. The value of his life is the sum of objects he has purchased. His life is an endless void of unhappiness. The Man is searching for a way to feel again in his life. All seems lost until his path crosses with soap making maestro that named Tyler Durden. Things from there out will never be the same for this nameless individual.

    Within the critic's circle, Fight Club has been tossed around from both sides of the fence. In actuality, Fight Club has mainly gotten buzz that pertain to good reviews. That is a hard accomplishment to achieve with the harshness of today's critics. It seems that anyone with the Internet and a keyboard deems themselves a movie connoisseur. Yet, loads of positive reviews were written. David Ansen of the Newsweek on page writes, "Yet this is not a movie that can be easily dismissed -- or forgotten" (77) and "An outrageous mixture of brilliant technique puerile philosophizing, trenchant satire and sensory overload" (Ansen 77). Those were just some of the few quotes from the very honorable magazine. He is not the only one to write such things. Faludi proclaims, "Fight Club is success" (89) and Schickel conveys, "The film remains strong" (83).

    Not all the critics wrote such simple quotes about the movie with regard to Fight Club. Many of them wrote much about the movie in great detail that the positive stance almost becomes lost in the reading. Gelman-Waxner tends to do that here, "Fight Club is way more fun because it's about nice suburban white boys cyber dreaming of drinking, brawling, blowing up office builds, and living in a really messy house" (54) and "the fight-club scenes have a gnashing, pounding immediacy that is initially quite exciting as a kind of feral expression of despair" (Denby 254-5). There are compliments in the text put yet it might take a trained eye to find them. The point is that whether long or short spoken, critics enjoyed the movie.

    Though like all material objects in this world; it is not perfect. There are always the few that have to find something wrong with a movie. Not implying that these men and women were just trying go about disliking this movie for now reason but that is the case with many movies. With the exception of most uber Christian house moms, there were really very little said to support this movie being an undesirable one. When it came down to it, it was mainly the massive amounts of fighting and blood in the movie that gave it the bad reviews. This is proven by Denby, "I cannot see the necessity for so many black eyes, broken noses, and purple bruises" (255). It is also stated, "its violent vision of male angst won't score with everyone" (Schickel 83). Comments like those will give views the prejudice that the movie is another action, gory movie title; in turn it will trigger others to give it a negative view of it.

    Fight Club's production can be quite interesting. It was written by a magnificent author name Chuck Palahniuk. It was written as a book then later was made to become a movie. That is where David Fincher comes in the picture. This was not the first movie Fincher had directed. He also directed the dark suspenseful movie, Seven. This you could identify in the movie Fight Club; "It's definitely a style-- see his Seven of a few years ago" (Schickel 83). It would seem that Fincher directs with an art and what he feels, "Fincher is both art-conscious and morally unconscious at the same time" (Denby 255); a quote like that would indicate the same. After that is comes down to the performance of the actors. Edward Norton and Brad Pitt were the two man characters. "Brad Pitt plays his character with great bravado" (Ansen 77). The acting can make or break a movie even before the masses see it. Now for one of the most over looked part of the movie, the lighting and visuals. "The camera is rambunctious and alive", "The lighting viciously dark" (Denby 254), and "Fight Club packs a visual punch" (Schickel 83), it is all these things brought together to make it the movie it is.

    If there ever has been the question of the existence of God, Fight Club has perhaps given an answer to the masses. How could a world without a divine being have such creative greatness? I know on the surface things seem rough but down inside the whole concept of the movie are powerful and thought inspiring. It almost touches on religious practices of Buddhism "The things you own begin to own you" (Durden movie). The shear idea of the movie makes my mouth water, breaking out of the lines and finding you in a brutal ritual of fighting arena. It tries to get you to think about what are the things that define you. Are they the cars you drive, the clothes you where, the money you own? No, it is the actions you make in your life. Your actions determine you will rise to greatness or fall in sea of unknown. Some aspects of the movie I was not as pleased with like at the end you do not know what happens to the narrator. The most disturbing fact about the movie is there is an underlining homoerotic theme to it, the fact of men fighting to achieve an orgasmic state of mind. Chuck Palahniuk is a homosexual and before has hinted to the fact just stated. All around Fight Club is just a great movie with more to offer than most "block busters" out there. With this quote by Schickel I will end it, "It's definitely a style" (83).