FIGHT CLUB: A REVIEW

!!WARNING!! The following review is about a movie that is rated R for sexual content, smoking, alcohol use, violence, foul language, and nudity, written in chronological order.  !!SPOILERS for Fight Club!!

Every day is the same thing, you work, but you can’t sleep, repeat. Nothing brings you excitement. While on a plane for a business trip, you meet a man named Tyler Durden. He makes soap for a living and the two of you become friends. One night while the two of you are outside a bar, he asks you to hit him. The two of you start fighting, not because you’re angry with one another, but because you can. People start watching and joining the fights. The two of you decide to make an official group, known as Fight Club.

Fight Club is about a man whose name is left unknown throughout the movie, but subtitles refer to him as “The Narrator”. The Narrator attends support groups for ailments he doesn’t have because the only way he can sleep at night is if he loses hope and starts crying. Before he started the groups, he would black out and wake up in strange places. A woman named Marla Singer was doing the same thing as The Narrator, and seeing her made The Narrator unable to sleep at night. He and Marla decided to split up the meetings, but this soon became pointless when The Narrator and his friend Tyler Durden started a fight club. What started as a fight club quickly became more than that, with Tyler Durden handing out assignments to members. Some assignments were violent, some were not, and some were simple vandalism. The people within the club started to show up at the house that The Narrator and Tyler were sharing, and Tyler started building an army composed of the members of the fight club. The fight club turned into something called Project Mayhem, a plot to erase civilization and spread chaos around the world.

Some things that stood out about Fight Club to me were the CGI (digital effects), costume choices, and practical effects. The CGI in this movie looks great for 1999, the midair plane collision has got to be my favorite. The filmmakers recorded the interior of the plane, but the collision and all the little things flying around were CGI, as well as the background. It truly looks amazing, especially for a movie that was released 3 years before The Scorpion King. My main pick for costume choice is easily Tyler Durden. As the movie progresses he looks more unhinged. Beginning with a simple red coat with unkempt hair and sunglasses, but at the end, he has a shaved head with a fur coat. His outfits seem to fit his craziness. Finally, the visual effects in Fight Club look great. All of the makeup effects during the brawls in the bar’s basement look great. They look painful and graphic while not looking too over the top. The combination of CGI and practical effects for the gunshot during the finale of the movie is easily one of the best in the whole movie. 

THE NARRATOR AND TYLER DURDEN (LEFT TO RIGHT); PHOTO BY ALEX ARENSDORF

Fight Club was a great watch. I sadly didn’t get to see it before learning about the main plot twist. Fun fact: Edward Norton (The Narrator) actually punched Brad Pitt (Tyler Durden) when recording the first fight scene of the movie, and it made the final cut. To see all the fights for yourself and witness one of the greatest plot twists in cinema history, you can watch Fight Club on Disney+ or Hulu. Fight Club is also available to rent or purchase from digital retailers. I’d give it an 8.5/10.