`Fight Club' – No Knockout but a Few Good Jabs by Homer Yen (c) 1999
If there's one thing that `Fight Club' unabashedly displays, it's that the era of the sensitive male is over. Men do not gush with gooey sentimentality. Restraint is only a temporary state of mind. There is an animal inside all of us, and it's aching to break out. But the rules of society and the pleas of our local community beg all of us to be kinder and gentler. Thus, we simply brush aside any feelings of aggression and replace them with happy thoughts and trance music. But just once, I'd like catch up to the guy who cut me off and run him off the road.
With that in mind, `Fight Club' is a movie to which many of us can relate. Narrated by the angst-filled Edward Norton, he represents something that is probably inside many of us. Dressed in buttoned white shirts and solid dark ties, he's stuck in a job that gradually squeezes every ounce of passion from his life. He is the beleaguered worker whose personal nirvana comes from furnishing his condo with as many items from the IKEA catalogue as possible. There is very little excitement in his life as he constantly drifts between a state of consciousness and unconsciousness. This man has every reason to be angry. But he doesn't have the spirit to do so. He has been asleep far too long.
His life is a stark contrast to soap maker, salesman, and chance acquaintance, Tyler Durden (the chiseled Brad Pitt). Everything about Tyler is a little bit larger than life. He's extremely confident, donning red-tinted glasses and looking somewhat like a pimp. He's extremely intelligent, reciting to him how certain household chemicals can be easily mixed together to form highly power explosives. And he's fearless, taking him on a raid of a liposuction clinic where he steals human fat needed for the high quality of his soap. Tyler is God. He talks, walks, and attracts girls in the way that Norton's narrator never could.
The only commonality between them is that they both possess pent aggression that they need to release. Finally, Tyler says, `Hit me as hard as you can. You'll never learn anything about yourself unless you've been in a fight.' So, the first swing is taken and surprisingly, there is actually something therapeutic about clenching one's fist and thrusting it forward into someone else's face. Fight Club is born. Soon, other men are joining this secret society. They are the local garbagemen, drivers, delivery boys, waiters and middle managers who are sick and tired of their lives. Fight Club can bring about the catharsis that they so desperately seek, which outweighs any pain that they feel from the myriad of broken noses and bruised faces.
Up through the first act, I enjoyed the essence and smartness of `Fight Club.' It's a good-looking film with a terrific effort by Norton and Pitt. And I also liked Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), as the frustrated loner who can't understand why pounding each other with fists is better than having sex with her. Then I realized that the men who participate in Fight Club do not find the spiritual freedom that they so badly want. Oddly, Fight Club evolves into some kind of cult where members engage in acts of vandalism throughout the city. The argument can be made that the direction in which the film takes asks the question of ‘how far is too far.' With Norton at one end of the spectrum and Pitt at the other, can a comfortable middle ground be found or does one side have to give it all up? It's an interesting question to be sure, and I wish that there were a smarter way in which the film tries to answer the question. As it stands, `Fight Club' is philosophy on one end of the spectrum and glossy thriller at the other end with no comfortable middle ground.
Grade: B-
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