Review of Fight Club (1999) by Filipeneto — 17 Aug 2019

This is one of those movies that promises a lot less than it offers, making it a pleasant surprise. Personally, I had low expectations when I saw this movie, but in fact I had read virtually nothing about it before I saw it.

The ingenious script is based on the strange and somewhat masochistic friendship between two very different men. One is very shy and the other very rebellious and iconoclastic. Both create a discreet, strict-rule fight club that evolves into a sort of secret society of anarchist contours. The story has a lot of twists and turns, surprising us, catching our attention. However, its not a perfect movie and there are really logical gaps and credibility issues in the story, not to mention that, at some point, the audience no longer really knows what is true in everything they saw. I believe this is intentional, and I recognize that its a feature that has its charm, but it may disappoint some people (personally I dealt with it reasonably well).

A decidedly good point in this movie is the gigantic performances of Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. Both are great actors, when they have space and material to evolve, and that's what happened here. Both actors were brilliant and developed throughout the film a bizarrely perfect partnership, with a touch of sadism, repressed homosexuality and predatory instinct. David Fincher, the director, also deserves congratulations, as he's the hand that guides everything and manages, with this film, to present to the world what (so far) is the masterpiece of his career as a film director.

Technically, the movie is quite good. The shadowy cinematography and the use of high contrast between light and dark were well used features, and the shooting and framing angles are very clever. The soundtrack, discreetly, also helped to accentuate the film's surrealism at the right times. Of course, its an action movie about an underground fighting club, so there are plenty of scenes of gratuitous violence, some of them quite brutal, as well as nudity and dialogues loaded with insults and profanity. So, I leave my warning to parents: its not a children's movie at all, and even teenagers should only watch it with great caution as its really a violent movie.