Fight Club
Movie Title: Fight Club
Description: You are not your job. You are not how much you have in the bank. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your khakis. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. What happens first is you can't sleep. What happens then is there's a gun in your mouth. And what happens next is you meet Tyler Durden. Let me tell you about Tyler. He had a plan. In Tyler we trusted. Tyler says the things you own, end up owning you. It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything. Fight Club represents that kind of freedom. First rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club. Second rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club. Tyler says self-improvement is masturbation. Tyler says self-destruction might be the answer.
Critics Reviews | |
| Christian Science Monitor, Tom Regan "Occasionally I see a film that demands a response or an action. 'Fight Club' is such a film." | C- |
| culturevulture.net, Tom Block "David Fincher’s 'Fight Club' (from a novel by Chuck Palahniuk) is about a special kind of male anger." | C+ |
| Flick Filosopher, "There is a dissatisfaction that American men are coming to realize afflicts them." | B |
| Harvey's Movie Reviews, Harvey O'Brien "There are some good moments in David Fincher's bombastic, hyperkinetic adaptation of Jim Uhls' novel." | B- |
Staff Reviews
What is 'Fight Club' in the film? Is it merely what is shown in the film to be an after-work club where young members beat the hell out of each other to vent out their negative energies? In fact no. Fight club is a metaphor. It's a war between an average nameless American citizen and a value-system that's increasingly being driven my advertising and consumerism.
Edward Norton's character starts as a nameless narrator. He represents a typical American executive with all the regular worries and loneliness despite everything money can buy. He is insomniac and lonely. He meets Tyler Durden who is a soap salesman. Tyler represents the value-system that the film is trying to explore. Tyler and Norton form a 'fight club'. The club is in fact a battleground where Tyler attracts and manipulates young guys to create havoc in each other's life. It's a great graphical illustration of how young and intelligent people from all walks of life are driven to distress by a system driven ideology.
The film is an adaptation of a novel by Chuck Palahniuk published in 1996. One of the many diversions from book to film adaptation is the staging of Tyler Durden as if he is a real character in the film. Audience is led to believe that Tyler is in fact a separate character until the end when Edward shoots Tyler and ends his mental projection shooting himself in the process. Edward , though, gets redemption and comes back to real world.