It's causing a huge heap of controversy and, yes, it's true. You leave Fight Club, the latest film from David Fincher, wanting to punch someone - not least the director. For Fight Club is a depressingly empty and violent film packaged for a design-susceptible audience. To top it all, its pop psychology and anti-consumerist philosophy lead you to wonder why you paid good money to watch it in the first place.
Ed Norton plays the nameless lead character, a dehumanised materialist
everyman who tries to break free of his antiseptic existence. This initially
involves the emotional onanism of attending 12-step support groups, where he
meets his female counterpart Marla, (overacted by Helena Bonham Carter). A
little later he meets Tyler Durden (a totally over the top Brad Pitt), whose
role is to be some sort of hip, masculine, anti-consumerist preacher. He
also happens to be great in bed, wears great clothes, has a fabulous body
without going to the gym and is, in fact, the alter ego to Ed Norton, and
supposedly the rest of us.
So in learning how to walk like a man, a fight club is started where the
boys can strip down and get physical and not mention the homoerotic
undertones. The illogical result of this is an assault on the world's credit
facilities.
Fight Club is over-long and its humour is sharpest in its attacks on Ikea-type consumerism near the start of the film. Visually it is stunning
but not inventive or fresh and, like its cod philosophy, it leaves you
wanting something more substantial.
Reviewed by Iain Tibbles
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