Fight Club
Director: David Fincher
Genre: Thriller
Main Cast: Edward Norton (as the Narrator) , Brad Pitt (as Tyler Burden), Helena Bonham Carter (as Marla)
Based On: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniak
IMDB Rating: 8.8
My Rating: 9.4
Length: 139 minutes
Budget/Gross Revenue: $63million/$101million
Plot: The white-collar narrator (name never given) is an insomniac who is stuck in a routine car accident inspector job that he does not like. To get over his insomnia problems, he starts going to group therapy for different ailments each night of the week. This therapy allows him vent emotionally, thus getting rest. He also meets Marla, a laid-back woman who becomes a thorn in the lives of the Narrator and Tyler later in plot. The narrator meets Tyler on a flight home, who introduces himself as a soap salesman. The narrator and Tyler grab drinks at a bar after the Narrator's apartment burns down and he needs a place to stay. The concept of fight club originates at that bar, as Tyler and the Narrator start a friendy fight between themselves. This pattern continues as both men spend their Saturday nights duking it out in front of, and eventually in the basement of, the bar. Eventually, Tyler spreads the movement across the nation building the cult of the Fight Club. In conjuction with this, Tyler continues to make moves without the Narrator, hiring many of the fighters and building the Project Mayhem, an intricate secret organization who's sole objective is to cause what their name incites: Mayhem. Meanwhile, the Narrator quits his job to become more involved in the Club and Project, and is disturbed by some of the actions that take place. Tyler eventually disappears, causing the Narrator to look for him in the cities of the Clubs. Tyler eventually appears to the Narrator and reveals that Tyler is actually the Narrator himself, the version of him that he wishes he could be. The Narrator had created the impression of Tyler to save himself from the routine lifestyle he despised. Mental images replayed with much of the film's plot changing the Narrator into Tyler's roles that he performed throughout the film. Realizing that Tyler had the potential to harm mankind, the Narrator shot himself in through the mouth, which in turn shot Tyler though the back of the head, killing him, just as Tyler's final plan of blowing up credit card companies to envoke financial chaos succeeded. Free of the reckless Tyler, Narrator Tyler could start his life anew, yet without the freedom he possessed with the old Tyler.
My Synopsis: This film really honestly blew my mind. The extremely varying themes of the movie all seem to tie together in the end, resulting in an incredibly inticing and elaborate plot. The concept of the Fight Clubs as a cult, a place where men of all backgrounds could go to vent, get away from their unimpressive lives, and express anger and frustation is something rarely seen in today's world. A quote by the Narrater in the film describes the Club best: "Fight Club wasn't about winning or losing. It wasn't about words. The hysterical shouting was in tongues, like at a Pentecostal Church." The intimacy that the fighter's shared with each other, the fact that they could be on the ground pounding the life out of each other one minute, then acknowledging each other's passions of violence the next while helping each other recover, was what kept Fight Club together and what drove it as an inticing pastime. Tyler's personality was also truly intriguing, albeit it was just another form of the Narrator. His comparison of himself to the Narrator was, "All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not." That was the key difference, and thus the reason that the Narrator couldn't initially grasp the identity of Tyler. He was free, he did as he pleased, lived how others didn't, thus why people followed him and his indeavors without question or reason. In one scene, Tyler walked into a convenience store and held a man at gunpoint, asking him why he wasn't pursuing his dream of going through school and becoming a doctor. He then threatened to kill the man if he wasn't following that dream in 6 weeks and took his drivers license. Later in the film, there is a quick pan of the back of Tyler's door in his room. The back of the door was covered in driver's licenses, meaning he had a habit of encouraging people's personal goals in life. I also truly enjoyed the theme of Project Mayhem, a group led by Tyler and the Narrator to cause ruckus and rebellion to society's norms. Project Mayhem's lack of similarity to most other organizations today is what makes it so intriguing. Sacrifrice without entitlement for a cause shows true devotion, and Tyler had that devotion of his men. As Tyler Durden would have put it, "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."
-Jarid Holliday
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