Fight Club Review: The Movie Revisited

To review Fight Club seven years after it’s release is like walking through the ruins of a city after a atom bomb has been dropped. Fight Club was ripped apart by critics for it’s vivid portrayal of violence, yet it found a home in the hearts of those who count the most, the audience. Exploring a spiritual and sickness in the heart of the males of this generation, Fight Club seemed to cause people to stand up and say “Yes, yes! That is how I feel.”

The vivid and heavily stylized look of the film put the dark emotions and almost anarchic themes up as a work of true art. The violence and destruction of the world around the characters played out almost like a ballet. Where not only do feel drawn in and facinated by it, but almost even feel the need to walk forward and join the dance.

While most at the time were unprepared for the frenzied and kinetic pace of the film, Fight Club’s exploration of the editing style opened up a new cinematic pace that many movies afterwords would enjoy. The fast bullet fast montages gave Fight Club a pace that pulled the viewer along, willing or not. One just couldn’t look away for fear of missing a moment.

During the first viewing one couldn’t help but be a little taken back by the dark and brutal nature of the film. Looking back one realizes that not only what the violent display in Fight Club appropriate, but perhaps even nessisary.

The film explored both purely male and purely female methods of coping. Crying and violence. While at the same time both the lead male (Edward Norton, Brad Pitt) and female characters (Helena Bonham Carter) are nether. Norton being a product of a fatherless generation, and Carter, while being emotionally troubled, could never be mistaken for weak.

In addition to being artistically brillent, Fight Club is full of horrifyingly funny moments. One cannot help but laugh at the anarchic exploits of the characters.

Fight Club is a dark, funny, joyride to the lengths that people will go to escape the everyday, consumer driven society they live in.