Fight Club

The first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about the end of the movie.

The second rule of Fight Club is you think about it for a long time afterwards.

Edward Norton plays a poor sap (again) who apparently has no name and a lot of problems in his life. First off, he hates his job. Second, he has no friends. Third, the only way he can get to sleep is if he cries at a group meeting for dying people. (This is where he meets Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), a similar junkie.) And last, but definitely not least, as soon as he gets back home from a business trip, he finds out that his apartment blew up because a freak accident involving his gas stove and his refrigerator. (Don’t ask.) This is how he meets Tyler (Brad Pitt).

The first time they meet is on the plane home. That night Ed calls Tyler for a place to stay. Then all hell breaks lose. They fight for the first time. This prompts, of course, Fight Club, a club where guys can come to fight it out. No grudges, just good, clean fights. (And the fights are actually anything but clean. These scenes are awesome. Bloodier and more plentiful than Raging Bull. That doesn’t make them better or more realistic, but it does make them gut wrenching.)

Things go pretty well for a while until Tyler starts to take things too far. He starts sending his “army” on missions to fight total strangers. Then they have to vandalize a large public structure. Then…well, see the movie. I’m not allowed to talk about it.

Oh, and then there’s the soap. Tyler makes soap for a living. And, in one of the most disgusting scenes since Trey Parker sucked the fat liposuctioned out of Marlon Brando’s ass, we find out what it’s made out of. Yummy!

If there was a way to somehow mix Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, Helter Skelter and Bergman’s Persona, then David Fincher found it. He’s finally gotten his old potential back! Yeah, he started out a little bit disappointingly (is that a word?) with Alien 3, but Se7en was one of the best movies of 1996. The Game wasn’t quite as good, but it was still pretty damn thought provoking and interesting. Now, with Fight Club, he comes back as a major director for our time. With huge, Scorsese-esque tracking shots, some that go from inside a man’s pores into a wide shot of a room (yes, I know it was done with computers and not an actual camera, but it’s still cool) and weird tricks of breaking the fourth wall, he makes a surreal experimental film that we can all enjoy and immerse ourselves in. That’s a pretty rare thing.

Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter are all amazing in this movie. They all deserve Oscar noms as do the film and director. Edward was so sickeningly sad at the beginning that I almost wanted to hate him, but I still felt myself feeling sorry for him. Brad was so slimy that I wanted to hate him, but still felt myself sucked in by his charisma. Helena was so slutty and dirty that I wanted to hate her, but still felt myself falling for her. And it’s amazing how they make-up people could turn all of these attractive people into almost hideous, sub-human forms of life. Even pretty boy Jared Leto looked like he had been hit with a few ugly sticks. Especially after Ed got through with him. And, of course, Meat Loaf was as ugly as always. He put in a surprisingly good performance, too. I guess he’s finally figured out that he’s a better actor than singer. And I think that Fincher found out that he’ll do anything for a role, including add a few pounds of fake breasts to his girth.

This was yet another “Best Film Of The Year” films. So far that’s American Beauty, Arlington Road, The Sixth Sense, The Matrix, Fight Club and, in a perfect world, South Park should all be nominated for Best Picture. I know many are saying Three Kings, but I haven’t seen that one yet. And I know many are saying Eyes Wide Shut, but that’s only because it’s Kubrick’s last movie. And I know still others are saying Dick, but that’s because they have very small vocabularies.

Definitely, if there were an award given for “Most Interesting Film Style” this one would win it. I haven’t seen a big budget, Hollywood movie play with the conventions like this in a long time. Maybe even never. There’s fourth wall breaking. There’s the film bending to show the sprockets. There’s subliminal shots of Brad throughout the first half hour before he’s really introduced. There’s even an explanation of those little circles, or “cigarette burns” in the upper right hand corner of the film. It’s hard to pick out all the conventions that Fincher breaks, but he does it without seeming totally pretentious. Now that’s amazing.

Now, for all you kiddies out there who are thinking about starting a Fight Club of your own, DON’T DO IT!!! Fighting hurts. It can make you bleed. Bleeding is typically bad. Besides, Brad was pretty much a bad guy in this movie. You wanna be the bad guy? Not that he didn’t have his points. Stuff isn’t as important as we always make it out to be. You should be happy in your job. (I’m learning that the hard way. Don’t ever work in customer service!! Especially not for five years.) But you shouldn’t do that by beating your buddy to a bloody pulp. That’s just wrong. There are other ways to vent your frustration. You can search all over for happiness, but there’s really no need to look any further than your own front door. There are plenty of things you can do right here in your own community. You can visit a dairy, and find out how milk is handled and prepared for delivery. Or plan a series of window displays on home safety. You can start a library. You can discuss with your dentist what you can do to make your teeth more attractive. (And if you know where I got that from, you’re good.)

So go see the movie, but don’t start fighting everybody because of it. I don’t think that’s the point of the movie. At least, if it was, I must have missed it somewhere among all the other points about life. This is satire on consumerism, following the leader and human feelings, not a promotion of violence. Either way, the phrase “I am Jack’s (insert body part/emotion/feeling)” has been permanently embedded in my vocabulary.

And watch for a theatre playing one of Brad’s movies.