Fight Club review

 Number 10 on the top 1000 films of all time is David Fincher's psychological thriller 'Fight Club.'

Edward Norton plays an unnamed white-collar worker and insomniac. Alienated from life and everybody around him, he forges a relationship with the mysterious and hedonistic soap salesman Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt.) The two of them form an underground fighting club which soon grows into something much bigger and more dangerous than either of them could ever expect. Helena Bonham Carter co-stars as the love interest of both male characters - Marla Singer.

Say the first two rules of Fight Club with me: You do not talk about Fight Club. Sorry, Mr Durden, but I will be breaking those rules straight away. As this film is probably David Fincher's most famous outing. based on Chuck Palahniuk's book of the same name, Fincher perfectly dialled into the alienation of Generation X. To paraphrase Tyler Durden, they are a generation without purpose. They had no war to fight, no great depression to suffer through, no collective identity - they are a group of men looking for meaning in a meaningless world. They are a dead people who find feeling in beating each other up.

Yet this film is so much more than just men fighting with each other. Regardless of what the ill-advised marketing campaign would have you believe. There is so much societal and political commentary from how we are constantly bombarded with advertising, which is more relevant now than it was in 1999, to the role of men in the modern world. Long gone are the days where men were the providers and builders of society.

I also hadn't realised how darkly comic the film was until I rewatched it. Much of this black humour comes in the film's initial act, when the narrator, in desperate efforts to find connection, attends a number of support groups including a testicular cancer support group. Here he meets Robert Paulsen - Meatloaf hidden under a massive fatsuit and prosthetic bitch tits. Due to Paulsen's cancer, he has quite literally become emasculated. He is just another lost man in an ocean of lost men.

Nobody is more lost than insomniac narrator played by Ed Norton in one of his most recognisable roles. Norton contributed greatly to the film's humour with his deadpan narration constantly conveying his cynicism about life. Even more recognisable was Brad Pitt who brought the enigmatic, anarchist Tyler Durden to life. By modern standards, you could argue Durden's nihilistic dialogue about the uselessness of the modern man is cheesy. In the hands of a lesser actor they would have been laughable, but Pitt was so convincing in the role that his words sounded almost philosophical. To some real audiences, they were a beacon inspiring real-life fight clubs all over the US.

Norton and Pitt also had a great chemistry. They balanced each other out in so many ways despite being complete opposites. This makes sense considering the film's twist ending, which I won't spoil here.

The setting was just as ambiguous as our narrator. Like how he is supposed to be an everyman, the setting could have been any run-down city full of disenfranchised men. The dull colour palate only added to the overall sense of alienation.

Lastly let's talk about Helena Bonham Carter who brought some fresh air to a sombre film. Marla Singer who, in retrospect was one of the first manic pixie dream girls, seems a hybrid of Durden and the narrator. She has all the narrator's cynicism, but also Durden's toxic hedonism. The three of them together were a toxic triangle.

If you don't know a lot about Fight Club, you might just write it off as a silly man film about sad men fighting each other because they can't properly process their emotions, but don't write it off too quickly. There is far more to this film than meets the eye.