Fight Club

Edward Norton Week

August 18, 2012

Fight Club Review:

Fight Club is one of my favorite movies of all time. It changed my life when I first saw it, in 8^th grade. I went over to my friend’s house and we watched it together, I had no idea what to expect. What I saw was a stellar movie with a great cast, a terrific script, and one of the best directors working right now. Fight Club is the story of a boring man who meets a man with several radical and crazy ideas, and what happens in their friendship is crazy, with a plot twist that actually works quite well.

Performances: The main character of fight club is the unnamed narrator played by Edward Norton. He is a boring man who suffers from insomnia and works at a boring desk job in the corporate world. He starts going to cancer support group meetings because it gives him the thrill that he is lacking in his life. When he first meets Brad Pitt later in the movie they are on an airplane, and you just know that the two are going to start working together. Pitt gives Norton his business card when they land, and when Norton returns to his apartment, he finds that he is gone, blown out by an explosion. He calls Brad Pitt, and they start living together. Pitt’s character Tyler Durden, one of the greatest characters in all of cinema history and an absolute badass, hates the corporate world and lives the thrill in life that Norton wants. Together they start a small fight club that starts to become huge, until several thousand men have joined. Then the mayhem starts, and it gets out of control. Late in the movie, you find out that Norton and Pitt are the same person the entire time, and that Pitt was just Norton living out the thrilling fantasies that he wants in his life, and it works very well. Also in this movie is Helena Bonham Carter, playing Marla Singer, a girl that gets dragged into the club when she starts sleeping with Pitt. She is great in it as well, but isn’t as famous a character as Edward Norton or Tyler Durden.

Plot: Fight Clubs plot is defined by the script, one of the greatest ever written. It has some awesome lines and awesome character development as well. When you find out the twist in the end, it is utterly believable based off of what you already know about Durden and the narrator. It’s a movie that starts off huge, then goes small and builds up to the ending again, which defines everything about the movie. In the end, Durden decides to blow up several office buildings so he can get rid of all the IRS has on him. Norton shoots himself through the cheek in order to stop him, making himself think that he is shooting through the head. It’s a really confusing ending however, and you don’t really know who won out in the end, Pitt or Norton. The entire movie is building towards this scene, will the grounded side of Norton’s psyche win or will the crazy part win. The way that they play it is so crazy with Norton and Carter embracing in front of the window watching the buildings being blown up. It’s fantastic.

Entertainment: The movie is full of fight scenes that are great. Plus the script is fantastic. The special effects in this movie are great. There is one scene where Norton is telling us how much he would want the plane to crash right then, and they actually show the plane crashing in a dream sequence, it’s crazy. The only time that I have seen better cinematography is in movies like Inception and Children of Men. The script is really the stand out in this movie however, it is well written, and some of the lines are actually quite funny. It really makes it a blast to watch.

Overall: Fight Club is one of my favorite movies ever, and you could easily make the argrument that it is one of the best movies ever made. The chemistry between Pitt and Norton is intoxicating, and the interactions between Norton and Carter are good as well. It has a terrific plot twist that works well, and it leaves the ending open for anyone’s interpretation. The only movies I’ve seen that are this creative are movies like Memento and Inglorious Basterds, both terrific movies in their own right. Overall, Fight Club is a great movie, and one that deserves a place in my favorite movies of all time.

His Name was Robert Paulson!

Overall Grade: A