Review of Fight Club (1999) by Matthew D — 27 Aug 2018

Fight Club is a blistering scream at society.

David Fincher directed a brutal satire and deconstruction of boredom and discontent blow for blow. Pound for pound, Fight Club beats the optimism out of you. Fincher's sleek style pits wild cuts, intense combat, and innovative shots to depict psychological deterioration, mental exhaustion, and a cultural frustration. Fight Club is funny, cool, and disgusting all at the same time.

Jim Uhls adapted Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club with a clear glee and reverence for the source material. Uhls' script is full of clever lines and social commentary. The themes of masculine frustration are clear as day alongside the scathing critique of the insurance and debt companies for taking advantage of the unfortunate. Fight Club is all about a release for the repressed, while providing comfort for the damaged or ill. It's quite sincere in its creed, perhaps too radical. Fight Club's twisted honesty shoves the light of truth in your eyes whether you like it or not. Regardless of how you end up feeling about Fight Club's nihilism, anarchy, and subversion, it is certainly entertaining.

Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf, and Jared Leto are all incredible in Fight Club. This movie's cast is stacked. Their gritty realism and intensity is hypnotic. The charisma of this cast is undeniable. Norton and Pitt especially carry the film to cult classic status.

Lastly, the instrumental hip hop score for Fight Club is classic. The Dust Brothers provide a chilling and frantic soundtrack to insanity the whole way through Fight Club. I have never heard hip hop combined with electronic and industrial sounds quite so effectively. The score gets a rise out of you at every cue. Quiet moments accentuated by little electronics sounds, then fights compound into brutality with loud accompaniment. The Dust Brothers killed it with Fight Club!

Fight Club is peak 1999 misery, grime, and charm. Fincher hits you so hard, you will consider just giving up and giving in to Fight Club's fists of violence and subversion. Enjoy this absolutely wild trip for what it is: a great film!