Fight Club

“Fight Club”

USA. 1999. Directed by David Fincher. Screenplay by Jim Uhls based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk. Starring: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf and Zach Grenier.

Rating: ★★

“Fight Club” is a movie that has been almost unanimously praised by critics and audiences alike and the question I would like to ask them is: what is it all about? Is it an attack on post-modern social conformity? Or is it an examination of the driving forces behind antisocial violence?

That is what director David Fincher and writer Jim Uhls probably intended the film to be. The film has been compared to movies like “American Beauty” and “Office Space,” both of which delved into the monotony of consumerism and office culture. It certainly delivers a terrific first act with the Narrator (Edward Norton) in a soporific state in a dead-end job.

What makes the movie tricky to put one’s finger on is what happens after the Narrator meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Tyler is the leader of an underground group of men who want to live in a code of anarchy and pay to punch, beat and kick each other to take out all their frustrations on consumerist society. The way the director films these fights makes the film's message and its delivery very confused.

Fincher, who has made smart thrillers such as "Seven" and the recent "Zodiac," is obviously a great director who can captivate viewers with visually arresting images and breakneck energy. The problem with “Fight Club," which is based on the cult novel by Chuck Palahnuik, is that the violence should not be portrayed in that way. Fincher’s camera resorts to slow-motion shots of pummeling and beating faces to the floor as if the opponents are some noble gladiators instead of grown men having grade school locker room fights. I cannot comment on the source novel by Chuck Palahnuik , which I have not read, but, in the movie, the fact that the graphic violence is portrayed with slick gloss is what makes it most troubling and hypocritical.

There is no doubt that the film's narration makes some intelligent points against the tethers of a materialist and product-driven culture and on how it can drive a man to barbarism. Where the film gets muddled is in the way it tries to show how to go about dealing with its subject. Is the message, live in anarchy and beat, kick and punch others to let out all your anger? The filmmakers will say that their movie is a cautionary tale against it and that one should not really live in anarchy, as the film attempts to show in some dire consequences in the Narrator's descent into madness.

Then what are we to make of the violence and the fact that the film does not really provide a sound alternative to it? Reflect on this, if the average young teenage male somehow grabbed a hold of this movie (though it is not appropriate for kids at all), what is it that they will remember more – the supposed social commentary or the arresting images of testosterone-laced pummeling?

Of course, some will argue that it is us, the viewers, are getting a kick out of seeing the violence and the film is attacking our own enjoyment of it. But the truth is that the movie really is encouraging it. A more realistic approach would have avoided the flashy photography and shown the pummeling men getting their hands injured as well upon making brutal contact with their opponents' faces.

It’s all too bad because the movie itself is very accomplished from a technical standpoint with some impressive performances. Brad Pitt is often criticized for being just a pretty boy but as “12 Monkeys” and certainly this movie shows, he can act in whacked out roles with great conviction. Edward Norton, who has been praised as one of the best actors of his generation ever since his very first role in “Primal Fear,” is no less convincing as the man who finds his life turned around by Pitt’s character.

The much talked-about resolution of the film sets another problem though. I personally resist films that seek to illuminate a serious social issue at hand and peg it into a neat and twisty ending. Not only does the conclusion bring in all sorts of logical inconsistencies, but does it add anything to the story? I read that the author of the original source novel, Chuck Palahniuk thought of this ending about two-thirds of the way through writing his book. The story would have been more compelling and honest if it had kept it as a battle of wills and ideas instead of an undeveloped gimmick.

Of course, in today’s Hollywood, that kind of loopy ending as well as the slick packaging of violence is needed because that is what will draw in mainstream audiences. The humorist, Don Marquis once said, “If you make people think they’re thinking they love you. But if you really make them think, they hate you.” I doubt many people would have gone to see “Fight Club” if it set out to make them really think.