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. 

Sleepers review

 Number 792 on the top 1000 films of all time is the legal crime-drama Sleepers.

Lorenzo "Shakes" Carcaterra (Joe Perrino,) Tommy Marcano (Jonathan Tucker,) John Riley (Geoffrey Wigdor) and Michael Sullivan (Brad Renfro) are four boys growing up in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York. Father Bobby Carillo (Robert De Niro) keeps a watchful eye over them. But when a childish prank goes horribly wrong, the four boys are sentenced to Wilkinson's Home for Boys where they experience horrific abuse by the guards led by Sean Noakes (Kevin Bacon.) Cut thirteen years into the future, the now adult John (Ron Eldard,) Tommy (Billy Crudup,) Shakes (Jason Patric) and Michael (Brad Pitt) swear to take revenge on everybody who did them harm.

Sleepers is very much a story of two halves. We have the lives of the boys before they attend Wilkinson's and their lives afterwards. If anything I preferred the first half. We're given a rich tapestry and a deep insight into life within Hell's Kitchen. There's no doubt that our four protagonists are little shits, but they are still interesting to watch.

And then things go south in the second half. The narrative tension just stops, as we enter a courtroom drama. The contrivance of all four boys all being sent to the same prison aside, the second half was not as neat or tightly focussed, as the first half. *spoilers to follow*

Upon release, John and Tommy become hitmen in the Irish mob. By chance they see Noakes in a bar and they publicly assassinate him. The case goes to court. Michael, now an assistant district attourny, seeing an opportunity to punish the rest of the guards who abused them, takes the prosecution with the intention of botching it. He enlists the alcoholic Dan Snyder ( Dustin Hoffman) to defend John and Tommy.

But the problem lies in how Noakes was killed early on. Noakes was the ringleader. He was the big, bad villain. The other guards were just his cronies. Without him, we're just seeing John and Tommy being persecuted for a revenge kill that the audiences knows they were justified in carrying out. It was dull.

It would have been more interesting seeing Sean Noakes, and the other guards, standing trial for the atrocities they committed. Instead, we were focussing on John and Tommy. And that killed any narrative suspense. The second half felt almost disconnected from the first. It didn't help that Noakes' cronies were little more than names on a page with little characterisation other than being a crony. The one exception was Ralph Ferguson (Terry Kinney) who was the only guard to express any remorse over what he did.

Even though there were some big names in the cast; Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Dustin Hoffman have five Oscars between them, I don't think anybody really shone. Brad Pitt and Dustin Hoffman only appear in the second half and De Niro was closer to a supporting character.

Overall, Sleepers was an entertaining if uneven film that went to sleep in its second half.

Se7en Review

SPOILER ALERT

Number 25 on the top 1000 films ofall time is this psychological horror/thriller film, David Fincher’s 1995 film Se7en.

Morgan Freeman plays the soon-to-retire William Somerset, an old and wise police detective and Brad Pitt is the cocky, young and arrogant Detective Mills.  Together they pursue a sadistic serial killer dubbed John Doe, played brilliantly by Kevin Spacey, who murders people in conjunction with seven deadly sins: lust, pride, greed, gluttony, sloth, wrath and envy. 

I really liked the premise behind this film and how it delved in deep into the psyche of a serial killer.  I’ve noticed that in society, there is a strong fascination with serial killers and their motivations.  Whilst we don’t necessarily condone their actions, they are definitely interesting to learn about.  This is one reason why I liked this film: it really took the time to explore John Doe’s character and his motivations for killing.  It delved well into his backstory and his psyche.  

This fleshed him out better as a character and added a sense of intrigue to the film.  Kevin Spacey was once again great as the serial killer: John Doe.  Playing the role with a deadpan seriousness, he conveyed himself, as a cool, calm and collected character.  This is what made him so scary; the fact that he doesn’t show any emotion or remorse for his actions makes him truly frightening.  I also quite liked the idea of John Doe using the seven deadly sins as a template for his kills.  I felt that this was creative and original enough to keep the film memorable.

However, Kevin Spacey is just one of a magnificent cast. As well as Spacey, you have Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow. These four actors share six Oscars between them - Best Actor Oscars for Paltrow and Spacey. Pitt and Freeman had a great chemistry together with Freeman acting as a begrudging mentor to the young hotshot Pitt. And I didn't even mind Gwyneth Paltrow who played Pitt's wife Tracey. 

Finally, there was some great cinematography which showed the drab and depressing city that the characters inhabit. A city deserving of the awful people who live inside it.