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FIGHT CLUB Send This Review to a Friend
Start with the question of what propels disaffected American men to become terrorists, erupting in bombing tragedies, and work backwards to the psychotic impulses that drive "Fight Club." For a while as I watched I began to think the film needed defending against the hysterical outbursts about its violence. Later, it became clear that there was a good idea gone berserk. True, there are scenes of men beating each other to a bloody pulp, but what else is new at the movies these days?
"Fight Club," written by Jim Uhls from the novel of the same name and directed by David Fincher, starts interestingly enough. Edward Norton, the character who narrates, suffers from insomnia, and much more as we eventually learn. He takes solace visiting a support group for men with testicular cancer, and soon is addicted to support groups for other ills. At one spot he meets Marla, another "tourist" at these sessions, and as angrily played by Helena Bonham Carter, she is a freaky-looking mess, but a woman who enjoys sex, loud and often. His other major acquaintance is a smart, vicious counterpart named Tyler Durden, played with a bright but sadistic edge by Brad Pitt.
The film takes a wicked turn under Tyler's leadership as secret boxing clubs are formed and frequented by men who beat the daylights out of each other for macho sport. Tyler has something more in mind. He is forging an underground army of brainwashed followers who will do battle as terrorists bent on upsetting society's infatuation with consumerism. Mischief is undertaken in the nameless city, and that will escalate to wholesale destruction. The build-up, including the bloody fisticuffs, involves such niceties as threats of castration and stealing bags of discarded human fat from clinics and turning it into soap (shades of the Nazis), then selling the soap to chic department stores, providing satisfaction in "selling women back their own fat."
Fincher does succeed in creating a mean, underbelly of discontent and chaos, but a story that might have worked with greater artistry and less in-your-face violence is decimated by the convoluted development revealed toward the climax. The far-fetched denouement fritters away whatever impact the film's central idea might have had. Ed Norton, as one has come to expect of him, acts very well, as do Pitt and Bonham Carter, no matter how unsympathetic their roles are.
"Fight Club" is gross all right, but its greater crime is that it turns out to be a missed opportunity to really say something intelligent about society instead of opting for sensationalism and gimmickry. A Fox 2000 Pictures release.
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