Review of Fight Club (1999) by Frank   — 07 Jul 2014

So I just watched Fight Club. That was one of the craziest films I've ever sat through. It's fucking crazier than American Psycho. First things first, the performances turned in by Edward Norton and Brad Pitt were phenomenal. Both did a great job mirroring each other both with very distinct and different personalities that play off each other. Sort of like magnets, opposites attract. *SPOILER ALERT PLASTERED ALL UP IN THIS BITCH RIGHT NOW*. These performances not only worked great together, but it was the characters themselves that also had the same effect. Brad Pitt is the badass/insane side of Tyler, while Edward is the bitchy control freak side of Tyler. It was awesome witnessing both characters meld into one towards the end.

Onto the directing, now. David Fincher is a great director; he's got a great resume and makes strong films. By strong films, I literally mean strong fucking films. His films are known to be rough and unforgiving, that's his style. He's an unflinching realistic and extremely gritty director. He probably has the darkest mind in Hollywood; which of course isn't a bad thing at all. Up until this point, my favorite movie of his has got to be Se7en (I haven't seen any other films of his aside from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: American Edition). And to be honest, this film just dethroned Se7en.

The dialogue is great and really fucks with you if you happen to be paying attention. The exchanges between Norton and Pitt were obviously the best parts of the film. And the sheer "WTF?" quality is quite high until it reaches its climax. When you do get to realize that Norton and Pitt are one and the same, it hits you (and in that scene it's great because it seems to have hit Norton as well, causing him to drop on the bed, passing out). And when it hits you, you realize, "Holy shit, they told us this shirt much earlier in the film." The most noticeable part being when Norton is beating the shit out of himself in front of his boss and you can hear him narrate in the background, saying, "This reminds me of my first fight with Tyler." And I couldn't help myself, but giggle because of how stupid I was being. Throughout all the scenes everyone was looking at Norton and not directly at Pitt (except for when Pitt is making speeches, but that's explained later on). All of Marla's scenes are always with Norton and not Pitt (at least on screen). And Pitt's #1 rule between him and Norton is to NOT talk about him. All of the signs were there if you were paying attention. Unfortunately, I was paying THAT much attention to notice something strange going on in those scenes and that's why I giggled because I could have easily figured it out if I had. It's like Fincher slapped you in the face with his dick, but you didn't notice because your too busy watching men fight each other.

The film does have a point outside of it being about fighting though. And it made me open my eyes. It's definitely a message that's hard to swallow. And it is made obvious through some of Pitt's dialogue, but not too obvious as to seem unreal and fake. The film basically states that the average working man, even the poor men who work hard just to get by...no one gives a shit about you. You work in your cubicles, you work at a construction site, you work as service personnel, you work as a janitor, and you are considered the shit and mud on the boot of society. And Pitt said it best, "We protect you while you sleep." We work for the higher ups that could care less about how we suffer from being unnoticed. No one gives a shit about you unless you do something meaningful. But, those people who have those shitty jobs are still needed to maintain society, so why are they shit upon? Why do people look at them like they are ants? Fincher makes an interesting point with this film and I found myself kind of wide eyed at some points during the film. We do, do this. And no matter how hard you work, even if you are the best at wiping the floors, you don't mean shit. Even though we still need you, we could care less about you. It's fucking pitiful if you ask me and Fincher has a great opinion and voice on that subject.

This film is raw, real, gritty, powerful, and even has some dark fucking humor to it. It's an excellent film that really takes a step back and says something about our shitty fucking society. It made me even feel uncomfortable knowing that I could be one of those people if I start sucking at life, but why should it? Oh yeah, because then people will look at me as some meaningless piece of shit, that's why. Everyone should be respected no matter what job they attain because at the end of the day...we all need each other to be able to live. And what made this film even better is that it didn't have a cop-out of an ending. And the ending was truly glorious.

Two for two...

10/10.