Review of Fight Club (1999) by Victor T — 01 Nov 2014

1999 was a phenomenal year for cinema thanks to great and/or memorable films like "Being John Malkovich", "Eye Wide Shut", "American Beauty", "The Sixth Sense", "The Green Mile", "The Matrix", etc. But if there was one film that was overlooked thanks to its ironic themes and peculiar twist, it was David Fincher´s "Fight Club".

"Fight Club" tells the story about an unnamed narrator who suffers from insomnia and works for automobile company. One day on a plane trip, the narrator meets a soap maker named Tyler Durden, but eventually due to some events, the narrator is forced to live with him. Tyler and the narrator start fights outside a bar which eventually starts to attract people to point of becoming a Fight Club.

Few films have managed to divide audiences to the extremes of considering it or "one of the best films of all time" or "one of the most overrated and dumb movies ever made" and "Fight Club" is one of them, in order to determine this, I´m going to break rules number one and two of Fight Club and even the first rule of Project Mayhem. "Fight Club" counts with spectacular performances from Jared Leto, Helena Bonham Carter, Edward Norton in arguably his best performance to date and Brad Pitt in his most charismatic and memorable performance to date; impressive and marvelous editing, amazing cinematography, clever use of CGI, a well written script which adapts perfectly Palahniuk´s novel, hilarious dialog, incredible direction by perfectionist Fincher, impressive and memorable sequences, charismatic and complex characters, great dialog and one of the best twist in cinema history. But even with all those phenomenal elements, the greatest strength that "Fight Club" has, is its perfect pacing; it so fast that all the important characters have story arcs and it transforms the film from an interesting bromance/drama, in the first half, to a anarchist and deep film about social criticism. But despite all the greatness of this phenomenal film, "Fight Club" has been subject of debate thanks to its anti-capitalism message which is filled with product placements, but I believe that was Fincher´s intention; I mean, what do you expect from a director who started on Nike commercials and music videos? I expect an ironic capitalism criticism, while the themes and social commentary are heavy handed and may seem juvenile for some people, they are effective, well executed and even somewhat inspiring. The other aspect that's subject of controversy is the twist which at first viewing comes off as bullshit mainly because of its improvability but on multiple watchings you learn that the entire film is filled with setups, some been very obvious while others are extremely subtle, which make the twist probable and genius but also creates a handful of logic problems that are too big to let pass.

Easily my favorite film from 1999, David Fincher has created an ambitious, clever and jaw dropping movie full with memorable dialog, sequences and characters; it has some problems but still is a masterpiece. To fully appreciate "Fight Club" or even to debate about it, you need to follow some rules: First rule: You need to watch "Fight Club" with your full attention. Second rule: YOU NEED TO WATCH "FIGHT CLUB" WITH YOUR FULL ATTENTION. Third rule: Break "Project Mayhem´s first rule". Fourth rule: It requires multiple viewings. Fifth and final rule: It's not for everybody so you may be against its philosophy.