Film Review: Fight Club

Edward Norton is an insomniac. He goes to support groups. He cries. He can sleep. He sees Helen Bonham Carter doing the same thing. She's a fake like him. He can't cry when there's another fake in the room. He can't sleep. He meets with Brad Pitt on a plane. His apartment blows up. He phones Brad. He asks to move in with Brad. Brad asks him to hit him. Ed does and so starts Fight Club.

At two hours and a half, Fight Club outstays its welcome. The film is never as smart and intelligence as it thinks itself to be. David Fincher (Se7en, Alien3) is like a first time director, showing off that he knows how to use a camera, but a first timer would never over use it like this. You could say it's style. But it's less camera angles and more camera (and computer) technology in use - over use at that.

There are subliminal images (people flashing into frame) and it later explains these and the "cigarette burns" of films. What this adds to the film is unclear.

There's a twist in the film that cheats you. It works in the opposite way that the twist in 'The Sixth Sense' worked. Instead of the film falling into place, you sit, trying to figure out the "So what?"

The film's message is ambiguous. When I thought I had got it, it was suddenly changed. So here are the list of possible options:

The use of employees in corporate America.
The lack of community in the modern 90s.
The reason behind terrorists and organised hooliganism (an important issue on this side of the world, especially in Britain)
And the mental mindset of a modern man.

It deals with all of these but never in any depth, which is a pity as these are significant issues. And the guys who join the army: why do they join? They're like the goons in the 1960's Batman series - they're just there.

The one saving grace of the film is the humour. Unfortunately it's hit and miss at the best of times.

Unclear is a word to sum up Fight Club. Unclear except for one point, Fight Club is? I can't really say what I want to (Cluas is a family web site). But let me say it begins with 's' and rhymes with 'height'.

Robert Lanigan

Check out an opposing view on this film with Ian's review