Fight Club (1999)

The seamy underside of an otherwise respectable world is the wheelhouse of director David Fincher.  Having liked his recent work in The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I turned to an earlier work.

Edward Norton plays a drone worker who seeks out support groups to help him combat insomnia due to the boredom of this life.  The excitement helps.  He goes to so many of these groups that he begins to notice Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) who plays a thin, goth woman who is a threat/help to him as he seeks to make sense of his predicament.    Notice any similarity to the other Fincher movies mentioned?

Edward (we're not sure if he is Cornelius or Rupert or Jack at this point) meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) who invites him to Fight Club, an underground roving fighting organization  modern day dueling to establish manhood and throw off the shackles of the world).  As Fight Club grows in size, so does the leadership of Tyler, much to the envy/dismay of Cornelius/Rupert/Jack.  To make matters worse, Tyler and Marla are getting way to close for comfort.

Fight Club is the way that the men rebel against their surroundings in life.  The rebel violence spills over into the real world.  Can it be stopped?  Should it be stopped?

The duality of the Office Space repression v. Clockwork Orange rebellion is supposed to be the bigger point but it gets lost in the forest through the trees.

SECOND REVIEW - Sept 10, 2015

Upon a second viewing, this Pre 9/11 film has a lot of themes that might be disturbing to modern sensibilities, and not just the fighting.  The passive/aggressive aspect, the Up-In-The-Air, corporate stiffness, and the final "we're like terrorists" aspect complete with crumbling buildings makes this worth a second watch.  Director David Fincher plays this one a little heavy, but it works.

* * * * of 5





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