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Summary: Fight Club - dies fighting
Review: This is a movie (as somebody said) that you will either love or hate. I, for one, didn't like (won't say hate) the movie much. I still think Fincher made an awesome movie in Seven, however Fight Club doesn't even close. It's about mindless fighting (so what if a bored idiot wants to vent out his anger by swinging fists) Very little acting required on part of actors. All they do is deliver witty (but uninspiring) dialogues. The background commentary gets annoying after some time. The movie is devoid of plot. Watch this movie only to learn that it's your own sh#t that you use to wash your face. Waste of money!
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Summary: Was The Motion Picture Academy Asleep? Helllooooo!?
Review: Edward Norton and Brad Pitt give stellar performances in this sleeper that should have garnered Oscars! This action packed ballistic missile of a movie has all of the elements great films are made of: A top notch script, wicked (at times even evil) humor, and a message for the viewers (often omitted in today's cinema features!) The plot is multi-layered and could have been spread into two more movies. -- If you missed the cinema showing of this gem, you MUST see it on video!
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Summary: Why did i not see this in the Theater?
Review: This Movie was a suprise, and it is one of the best movies i saw in a long long time. but acording to the rules , I can't talk about the movie.. :-) well worth your time to see this one..
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Summary: Modify the first two rules!
Review: There is a need to avoid ruining this film for the unfortunate souls that haven't challenged themselves with it! So the trailers and even some of the word of mouth lead me astray. I too thought it was probably going to be "Top Gun meets Toughest Man In The World wrestling". The trailer did have touches of brilliance from the Tyler monologues, so i didn't dismiss it.What made me finally go was that it was added to the Midnight Movie list of my local Landmark Theatre, the Inwood in Dallas. I've only seen ONE "bad" film there, and even it was enjoyable! CAVEAT - PLEASE beware of setting people up with too high expectations, like i did! I was telling everyone it was the best film of all time. Sue me. I was under the influence or brilliance, and genuine originality. But as a result some of my friends had what i call the "Fargo" experience. (If i hadn't heard how Earth-Vaporizingly Magnificent Fargo was, i would have probably enjoyed it immensely.) Fight club is outstanding. But if they mentally multiply Citizen Kane by Dr. Strangelove, stir in Life Of Brian to taste, and subtract (shudder) Starshi* Troopers... they may actually be disappointed. *Side Note* - (like the rest wasn't "side" enough) i convinced my dear friend to enjoy this movie with my help. She has completely lost her vision in recent years, and so i rented it, and paused it to answer questions and supply crucial visual cues. I needed to be able to discuss it with her, and i felt uniquely qualified, or at least willing to help her "watch" it. She loved it. I had learned my caveat at that point. So. Modify the first two rules. "You do NOT over-hype Fight Club!" Repeat.
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Summary: Tyler Durden, c'est moi!
Review: Who do you identify with more - Jack, the insomniac office drone who hates his job, but can't escape, who loves IKEA furniture but hates himself for it, or the mysterious Tyler Durden, by day a soap salesman, but by night someone much more subversive? This movie was billed as being about fighting, but its really about the human soul and the box of conventionality in which we keep it locked. Here's what Tyler Durden has to say: 'We are the middle children of history, with no purpose or place. We have no great war, or great depression. The great war is a spiritual war. The great depression is our lives.' For Durden, consumerism and the American dream is the enemy. The film asks whether there might not be a crazy free spirit, an urban terrorist, an unabomber, in each of us, and if there is, what we are going to do about it. If cancer sufferers can have their own self-help groups, what about modern-life sufferers? What will allow us to actually feel the pain of modern existence?
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Summary: Empty, Absurd, and somewhat dangerous
Review: Major Hollywood Studios have to make money. That's not bad. That's why they pay megamillions to startlets; because they know they magnet attraction to young audiences, that have money, and can go twice(?) to see a movie. That's why Bradd Pitt is here: to get that audience. But where's the film? What's the morale? Get punched, humiliated, try to do the same and then feel better? Or: Let's don't care anymore, just bribe our bosses, get some easy money and travel thru the world creating clubs where human beings are denigrated constantly. This is a dangerous vehicle. If you are bored with your life, go and hit another one: he will like it. Parabole of modern life? Grasping excitement? C'mon, get real!
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Summary: One you keep thinking about after it's over
Review: This movie is incredible. From what I heard of it when it was in the theatres, I wasn't interested. I'm more of a chick-flick movie person at times, ya know, like Steel Magnolias. Not that this movie is a chick flick at all, but it was a lot different than I expected. The plot is so drawing, the characters are very interesting that I actually kept thinking about them after the movie was over, thats something that never happens anymore. The twist in the end made me think for days about how it must have been to be the main character, and then I noticed that they never mentioned his name. I'll say no more about that.
Rating:
Summary: A complex, but spellbinding, film.
Review: Few movies seemed to divide critics and audiences the way Fight Club did in 1999. Adored by some people and abhorred by others, Fight Club is a wonderfully complex and compelling film. Is it serious? Is it a social satire? Is it something else entirely? Who can say? Who needs to? It is a movie that you simply must watch, and whatever you end up thinking about it, you will be a better person for having seen it. Spectacular acting by Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, and Brad Pitt (in approximately that order) make an already interesting screenplay all the better. The DVD version includes lots of extras which enhance the experience of Fight Club even further, but don't let not owning a DVD player prevent you from watching this important and, I feel, thoroughly entertaining and worthwhile movie time and time again.
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Summary: flawed but brilliant film
Review: The `machismo factor,' though it lies at the root of virtually every shoot-em-up war film, western and action picture Hollywood has ever produced, has, strangely enough, gone largely unexamined in films as a subject itself. `Fight Club' becomes one of the first movies to actually address the issue, bluntly and directly. Before it eventually spins out of control, this provocative film audaciously confronts a disturbing, but truly pertinent anthropological issue: in a society that, for purposes of its own survival, actively discourages violent behavior, is it possible for a man, conditioned by eons of innate but ever increasingly repressed `hunter/gatherer' instincts, to ever cut himself loose and be true to his real nature? And if he doesn't, can he be said to ever be a `real man,' or is he simply a hollow shell allowing society to determine what he values and how he lives? Edward Norton stars as Jack, a man so softened by the amenities of a modern technological culture that he has even replaced pornography with the IKEA catalogue. As far from his barbaric ancestral roots as any man worthy of the label can be, Jack has turned to haunting feel-good support groups to fill the void his empty life devoted to meaningless culture-driven values has created for him. Suddenly, into his life walks Tyler (Brad Pitt), a sardonic, tough talking thug, the total antithesis to Jack and a man completely in touch with his male-based instinctive need for simple hand-to-hand physical confrontation. Together, the two set up an underground club designed to give men like Jack the opportunity to beat the living crud out of each other and therein find their way back to their true primordial selves. Not only does `Fight Club' explore a fascinating and long-overdue theme, it insidiously lures us in to the glamorous excitement of the fight scenes themselves. Much as we may resist their pull, we are so appalled by the alternative we are shown in the form of Jack's drearily routine office environment, the stifling conformity of his decorator-influenced, perfectly coordinated apartment and the self-aggrandizing emotionalism of the many support groups he visits that we feel as liberated as he does by the simple physical aggression of the unregulated bouts. This is the genius of the film: it makes us just as cognizant of the compromises we ourselves routinely make to social norms as it does Jack. What is most impressive is that the film could easily have turned into just another cautionary tale, a violent tract warning us of the dangers of allowing these instincts to run amok. Instead, the filmmakers have been careful to keep most of the activity in the realm of self-contained mano-a-mano confrontations. In fact, the club members do not employ guns, and, for the most part, scrupulously avoid hurting innocent bystanders or killing anyone. (Just for the record, this controversial work is actually a much less violent film than most of what passes for benign action cinema these days). Although there are a few steps taken by the group in the direction of involving outsiders in provoked fights and eventually detonating some empty buildings - these are, by the way, the least authentic sections of the film - the violence really doesn't extend much beyond the confines of the club itself. Thus we are spared the tiresome moralizing one might expect from a film exploring this theme. Where, then, does the film ultimately come out on this issue? Is `Fight Club' a socially irresponsible call for the unfettered use of violence to create societal chaos, or is it a sly black comic vision of a world gone crazy intended to highlight the dangers of just such a situation? The answer to that question is really not an easy one to come by, for the film itself loses its way in its final half hour. Having set up this fascinating premise, `Fight Club' decides, rather inexplicably, to go the sci-fi route, setting up a Jekyll and Hyde situation that both undercuts the seriousness of the theme and spells the message out in far too simplistic terms. Also, unlike in `The Sixth Sense,' the surprise turnabout ending doesn't make sense in the logical context of the story. Are we to actually assume that Jack has been fighting HIMSELF all this time? It is true that the dark comedy flavor that runs throughout the film does create a world where the improbable can be made possible. But the suspension of disbelief required by the final acts of this film places far too heavy a burden on the audience to make the drastic shift in tone truly work. Special note should indeed be made of the extraordinary performances of Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. Pitt, in one of his finest roles to date, conveys the macho hard-edged physicality and sardonic charm necessary to lure these men to his way of thinking. Norton always keeps his character focused and life-sized, allowing Tyler to exploit these inner yearnings yet remaining enough on the outside to continually question the validity of his actions. `Fight Club,' for all its imperfections and moments of confusion, deserves credit for finally attempting to explore a theme too often exploited but rarely examined by Hollywood. The film provides some real food for thought and, in all honesty, how many movies can you truly say that about?
Rating:
Summary: am i the only person alive that hated this movie
Review: I am a huge Edward Norton fan so of course when this movie cameout I rushed to see it. That was the biggest mistake ever. It wasjust too weird for me. I usually like movies with unsuprising endings but this went too far. The acting was great but the story was lacking. Lastly, THIS IS THE MOST OVERRATED MOVIE OF ALL TIME!
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