Thursday, September 30, 2010

Fight Club Review

I’m an avid movie watcher, and I just finished watching fight club (with an enhanced senses, if you get what I mean). Here’s my review for one of the seminal films of the 90’s, and one of my all time favourites:-

In the start, the narrator, Edward Norton’s character is a nameless, boring drone who leads a shallow, meaningless life as just another cog in the great corporate wheel. He spends his time buying sofa-sets and basically indulging in the huge façade that is today’s materialistic and fake society. As he puts it: “We used to read pornography, now it’s the 'Horchow Collection.'”

But he isn’t satisfied with his life. There’s always this nagging feeling, deep-down, a hint of discontent. He becomes an insomniac. With a stroke of luck, he discovers therapy groups, and there, on the pretext of a terminal disease or an addiction, he cries. He cries about the hollowness, and the utter futility of it all.

This daily discharge helps him sleep. Until, that is, chain-smoking, messed-up Marla Singer starts coming to his therapy sessions for a similar purpose. Seeing another ‘tourist’ there bursts the happy he finds bubble of the narrator and insomnia creeps back into his life.

Then he meets Tyler Durdan and he’s drawn, like everyone else, to his magnetic personality. One night, on a whim, Tyler asks the narrator to hit him. He complies, and thus begins fight club. Fight club transformed into a nocturnal activity in a basement where semi-naked men expressed themselves in a purely natural manner- by pummelling each other senseless.

That’s all that I’m going to reveal here. But let’s talk about Tyler Durdan. For it’s not possible to talk about fight club and not talk about Tyler Durdan, a character who was recently named the greatest movie character of all time by a magazine, beating out competition from the likes of Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter, The Joker, John Rambo etc.

Brad Pitt outdoes himself in portraying just about the best example of an alpha-male you’ll ever see. Tyler epitomises the saying about Bond (“Man want to be him, Women want to sleep with him”) more than any Bond. The rugged Daniel Craig, the cool suave and sophisticated Brosnan and Connery all fall flat in front of his sheer charisma. His laid-back, casual attitude tells of a man who has not a care in his life. The conviction with which speaks tells of a man who’s got it all figured out. His radical thoughts and ideas tells of a fearless man, not afraid to go against society. And the small, condescending smile he occasionally afforded the narrator te;;s of a man who kno’s just how superior he is too everyone. Tyler Durdan acts the saviour of the society’s repressed men and frees them from it’s clutches.

Edward Norton does a brilliant job as the narrator, and his boring drawl as a narrative paradoxically draws you further in the movie.The dialogues are smart and some of the lines have now achieved cult status and are often quoted to each other’s by today’s hippier-than-thou teenagers. The cinematography is completely in sync with the somewhat non-linear storyline and is so good that it somehow distracts most watching it for the first time (including me) from a very obvious truth which makes you feel really stupid afterwards. Because of this, Fight Club, has, for most of the stupid audience (which constitutes an incredibly large number of us) and also the ones who think they’re too smart (the rest of us), a huge twist that leaves you gasping, adding to its excellent plot.

The film does tickle the fancies of many, despite the film’s anarchistic messages being tempered down with wry humour. Fight club preaches about evolving beyond the endless pursuit of perfection by today’s superficial society. Fight Club is about showing on your face what other people hide in their closets. Fight Club is about exposing the dirty underbelly that every household inevitably has. But it also preaches against taking its own ideas too extremely. But above all, it entertains. It is more than two hours of intense entertainment.

For all those who haven’t seen Fight Club, go watch it right now!

9/10

3 comments:

m y s t i c said...

Fateh writes about fight club. 'nuff said. Cheers.

and Yes Tyler Durden is awesome...
Although Sean Connery remains at the top for me dude. I do not wish to compare and trouble thee mind :)

IsHiTa said...

I really want to watch the movie after this :P (yes have'nt caught it yet :/)

This really is nice- sounds like the proper reviews that make us want to go and see it for ourselves .
Perfect mix :story, highlights,theme,suspense about the end.

Fateh said...

thanks :)