Fight Club | | Cast : | Edward Norton, Brad Pitt | | Director : | David Fincher | | Studio : | Twentieth Century Fox Home Video | | Format : | Closed-captioned, THX | | Released Date : | October 15, 1999 | | DVD Released Date : | June 06, 2000 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 08, 2005 | | Summary | Sorry. It is just bad. | Content
 | The previous reviewers are all good people who obviously love cinema.
That said, this movie is really pretty terrible. I most sympathize with the reviewer who said that it wasted two hours of her life.
Honestly, folks, what is it about? The acting and cinematography are excellent. The dialogue is that "quirky and edgy" garbage that passes for "Literary" writing these days. (Read Hemingway to learn how people actually talk.)
But the plot is mindless. It's all about showing off how progressively weirder you can pile things up as a writer, but it is just plain nonsense. It reeks of Iowa School plotting. Or Irvine. Which is the only part of California technically located in Iowa.
Rent "The Station Agent" and see what a really good script can do for a really low budget movie.
The stuff in here, man...I about threw up. I kept waiting for a payoff, but it was just a lot of sadistic violence and an "apocalypse" payoff that comes from what, what? The doppelganger stuff doesn't work. There is no motivation. Boredom does not count. The notion that somehow bringing down New York "frees" debt slaves is stupid. Computers in Podunk have the information.
All in all, unless you are a very angry person stuck in a terrible and pathetic adolescence, this is not a decent movie. Too bad. I could see places where it might have worked.
If you like this movie, you'll love "Triumph of the Will." Just get real with your inner self.
Sorry! |
| Rating | | | Date | July 30, 2005 | | Summary | Helena Bonham Carter - Please Comb Your Hair! | Content
| You'll enjoy this movie If you think "The Matrix" provides a viable world-view, that Keanu Reeves is a Christ-figure, and that Helena Bonham Carter is a sexy woman. If, however, you are a normal human being you will most likely think it sucked like I did. What the? Who the? Why the? I liked Edward Norton a lot in "Rounders" and "The Italian Job" but was just bored with him in this movie. Helena Bonham Carter managed to be irritating in every scene she was in. Seeing Meatloaf with large breasts almost put me over the edge. If you think this movie is deep please stop what you are doing immediately and get a life. By the time I stopped watching this movie at close to 1:00 A.M. I felt like I had been subjected to North Korean sleep-deprivation torture. It's now the next morning, I'm tired, and I'm angry I wasted my time on this movie! The first rule is "don't watch Fight Club"! |
| Rating | | | Date | July 19, 2005 | | Summary | The First Rule Of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club! | Content
| I only have three sentences to say. Watch it. It is the best movie ever. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 17, 2005 | | Summary | the other heart of darkness | Content
| first of all, a note on fascism. it is a sociopolitical movement that emphasizes: 1) leadership and authoritarianism, 2) nationalism, 3) corporatism. you cannot brand every undesirable movement "fascist," as some critics of this movie have done. "fascism" has particular implications and certain trends. it takes on different forms at different times and places, but, nonetheless, as mussolini's italy and hitler's germany show, the particular characteristics are stasis.
"fight club," certainly, is not fascist. it is highly authoritarian and ideological, but not fascist.
with that out of the way, i'd like to mention the crux of the matter.
i couldn't help but think of joseph conrad's "heart of darkness" while watching this. as i write this review, i am not even completely done with the movie (it is my first time watching it). the closer i get to the end, the more it resembles the classic story of identity: a person is put in certain situations, feels enlightened, and gets closer and closer to his own nature. whether is nature is liberating or deadly is another matter.
the premises of the movie are correct: corporatism, consumerism, and the average person's fright (and dislike) of freedom are ever-present. from this, the (nameless?) protagonist finds a passionate activity: fighting. and it's not just fighting; it's backed by passion and a host of other spontaneous activities. but in attempting to escape elitism and arbitrary lifestyle, the activity itself becomes regimented and takes on an authoritarian and elitist quality. the fact that it's now an organization with membership and not a free-association "activity" becomes a powerful argument against leadership itself; leadership, ultimately, becomes a tool for slavery. the members are *members* -- mindless and all of that.
the characters replace once abstraction, one ideal -- wealth, power, physical beauty, etc. -- for another, and, in the end, become self-destructive as they take it to its natural conclusion. consumerism in the movie is now absent, true, but look what the world has instead: a mindless army serving the 'vanguard' of revolution, an impersonal and quite elitist group of drones. really, the (nameless?) protagonist is the only individual that truly understands what is going on: he recognizes his own human inadequacy, and, to compensate, creates an alter-ego that takes on the qualities of his ideal self. truly, this is not the way to live; replacing consumerism is meaningless if one is still a slave to abstraction and thinks of himself in terms of "better/worse" and "greater/less than."
this is indicative of one-dimensional thinking in a three-dimensional world. abolishing consumerism, corporatism, and et cetera is meaningless if one only aims to change around the terminology and call it an actual difference. what about life, what about happiness, what about freedom? not the freedom of capitalist democracy, or the non-sense political talk the reactionary media smacks you with: freedom is not an abstraction, but a lifestyle without membership. it's not something that one "keeps secret," like the fight club organization does. it is a contagious, desirable reality, and that's a fact.
and this is the real message of the movie.
anyone that calls this anti-intellectual, immature, and without a purpose has missed it. it is not a glorification of meaninglessness and unfocused apolitical violence; it is, on the contrary, a condemnation of such non-sense.
and if you disagree, watch it again.
the movie just finished five minutes ago. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 13, 2005 | | Summary | We work jobs we hate to buy (...) we don't need. | Content
| Most of you will never read this review because it is going to be burried under countless other reviews. About 1200 or so to be exacting. This is a very underrated movie that can only be challenged by the book itself. Although the book is 800 times better than the film the film had to be adapted to a screenplay that good be accepted, enjoyed, and still maintain some of the mystery. This movie is a great example of good acting in action, an incredibly humanistic message, and also a type of movie that should reach everyone. Nevermind what people say that the fights seens and the "eye candy" of Pitt and Norton are its one saving grace. The film in and of itself holds itself up for anyone who is open to a great message and a great story. |
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