Review of Fight Club (1999) by Bradysmith — 04 Jul 2013

Brilliantly realized nonsense, Fight Club is one of the most highly stylized and energetic movies ever made. I can only imagine how impressively innovative it must have seemed when it first came out, with its surreally pulsating soundtrack, constant miniature sucker punches, and wildly inspired direction.

The performances are all darkly comical and Nortan's character is an amusingly disturbed individual. It's not perfect however. It has a twist ending that descends the story into complete, albeit entertaining, stupidity, it packs on way too much sexually immoral content, and lacks any true meaning despite its constant insistence that it does.

It also slows down too much during some sections. These flaws would normally sink a movie's score a lot further down and even kill some outright, but Fight club is so entertaining in a hyper macho off kilter sort of way, so well made, and so memorable in ways that few movies can ever achieve that in the end they're not detrimental to the film's overall quality.

I have to say, Fight Club is some sort of flawed, but brilliant classic. But don't watch it unless you're mature and old enough to not be scarred by some of the film's immoral or violent material.