Review of Fight Club (1999) by Oskar B — 25 Jul 2015

David Fincher's flamboyantly dark motion picture is a mesmerizing cinematic experience, It's a sublimely bizarre, starkly hilarious tale of an underground group of men who beat each other to a bloody pulp.

The story concerns a the socially-challenged, disaffected worker named Jack, played magnificently by Edward Norton, a 30-year old man suffocated by his office job and badly suffering from a serious bout of insomnia.

Attending a self-help group for testicular cancer, Jack is heartened at the fact that people feel sorry for him. He begins appearing at these self-help groups on a frequent basis, until he spots another "tourist": the ragged, chain-smoking drug kitten Marla, played by a superb Helena Bonham Carter.

It just doesn't work any more for Jack. That is, until he meets the glorified soap salesman Tyler Durden, played compellingly by Brad Pitt, on a plane trip and new possibilities are opened in his mind, Tyler introduces Jack to his method of personal liberation: old fashioned hand-to-hand combat.

After a while this "Fight Club" begins to catch on, and several new members are awaiting their turn to join in the no-holds-barred fist-fight pummeling, these brutal impromptu battles evolve into an vast underground network of fight clubs.

Astute direction by David Fincher, with exceptional supporting performances by Meat Loaf, Zach Grenier, Richmond Arquette, David Andrews, and George Maguire, impressive cinematography by the late Jeff Cronenweth, and razor-sharp editing by James Haygood.

An intriguingly original well-crafted film. Highly Recommended.