Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999): USA/Germany

Reviewed by Charles Hedrick. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

While walking out of the theater where I had just viewed Fight Club I was thinking to myself “wow, that movie never seems to get old.” Fight Club is, hands down, David Fincher’s best movie, followed closely by Se7en, which also features Brad Pitt; however. Pitt’s performance in Fight Club is far greater than it was in Se7en. Which brings me to my first point about Fight Club: the acting was top notch. Not only was Brad Pitt’s performance superb, but his co-star Edward Norton and the rest of of the cast also put out an excellent performance. Another great aspect of this film is that unlike most films, which either have a great story that is spoiled by a bad ending, or have a not so great story that cannot be pulled together by even a good ending, Fight Club has both an excellent plot and an excellent ending. The only aspect of Fight Club that might be worth noting as a con is that it requires an intelligent audience to fully understand and enjoy.

The story of Fight Club follows Edward Norton’s character, The Narrator, who is an office drone whose condo has just burned down. Soon after The Narrator’s condo burns down, he meets a man named Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), and together they start a club to vent male aggression. Later in the movie, Tyler starts to use the club’s members to incite mayhem, and soon after that Tyler and The Narrator start to have a conflict of beliefs which causes The Narrator to begin on his quest to stop Tyler’s plans from succeeding.

The thing that made Fight Club not just a good movie but a great movie was the excellent acting. Every single actor in this movie was believable, interesting, and they worked together to amplify each other’s acting, which is something that is not seen very often these days. For example, Edward Norton and Brad Pitt spend quite a bit of time throughout the movie and really work together to put on a great performance. Another aspect of this movie that is good is the excellent story. The proof that Fight Club has a good story is that every one who sees this movie, even if they are one of those people who think that Fight Club is just about a bunch of guys hitting each other, usually walks away saying they enjoyed the story very much. One other aspect of this movie that made it great was the excellent ending.

While there may have been quite a few excellent qualities about this movie, there is only one that may be considered a con. This con is that it requires an intelligent audience to fully enjoy this film, however that is the only requirement to enjoying this film. So I would suggest that you and few of your intelligent friends see Fight Club and I can almost guarantee that you would all enjoy this film.