Review of Fight Club (1999) by Moviemew _ — 03 Feb 2018

"Fight Club" is, simply put, a delusional movie. I don't mean that in a bad way, however: the story is incredibly unique and intriguing, albeit absolutely mad in about every of its aspects. The Narrator, an office worker-turned-insomniac portrayed by a young Edward Norton, has his apartment blown up and thus loses everything in his possession, whereafter he meets an outlaw-ish brute, a certain 'Tyler Burden', portrayed by an evenly fresh Brad Pitt. Together, they start a recreational, underground fistfight club.

That is to say, "fresh" isn't exactly how one could describe "Fight Club". The film gets its charm from its filth, nonchalance and brutal surrealism: the dark, bloody, dirty, violent, cult-like environments, driven by ideologies declared by derailed personalities, make for an almost careless aesthetic that wholly differs from the cinematic norm - though a pleasant one, for sure. To amplify this barbaric nature, characters seem to heal from battle wounds in a quick (and, in doing so, surreal) fashion, so that they are able to participate in fistfights more often than sanity would advise us: I'm sure that in reality, the cuts and bruises would become unbearable, that members of Fight Club would receive unthinkable brain damage, and deaths would be rather frequent in said club, given the raw fighting the audience is shown. Again: all this adds, rather than takes away.

Without spoiling too much of the plot: the film can be divided into two parts - one before, and one after the grand plot twist. During the first part, which largely comprises what's described above, loads of subliminal buildup of story takes place, to eventually catalyse one of the best plot twists that was once witnessable on the contemporary big screen. It offers a great explanation for the peculiarity of the story up until that point, whilst making it even more twistedly genius at the same time, ending the film in the climactic second and final part.

So, in short, "Fight Club" is a raw, psychopathic and disturbing narration about having nothing to lose, offering a unique twist on things as they are - an absolutely remarkable piece of storytelling history.