Ever felt so frustrated that you felt like punching something or someone really hard with you bare fists! Ever wanted to beat the living crap out of someone to vent you anger and irritation. Well, join Fight Club! ? a secret underground society formed by characters Jack and Tyler Durden. Here you beat or get beaten by someone and the rules are simple:
?The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is...you do not talk about Fight Club.?
David Fincher, who made Seven and The Game, directs this controversial and violent movie, based on Chuck Palahniuk?s novel. This film mainly revolves around the narrator, Jack (portrayed by Edward Norton), who works as an automobile manufacturer consultant checking car crashes and is pretty much fed up with his mundane life. Suffering from insomnia, his doctor advices him to attend support groups for cancer victims.
After seeing people in greater pain than himself he becomes addicted to such meetings and begins to join other such related groups he can find. It is in one of such meetings he stumbles on Marla Singer, played by Helen Bonham Carter, another phony attending such groups. Unable to bear the guilt of seeing another faker at his meetings he longs to find another means to release his emotions.
It is by accident he meets and befriends Tyler, a soap salesman played by Brad Pitt, seated next to him on an airplane. When he reaches home, he discovers his house is burnt down and all his belongings destroyed by an unexplained explosion. Nowhere to go, he calls up Tyler, who agrees to give him a place to stay in his rundown, abandoned house. Its after a few drink in the bar they start a playful fistfight instigated by Tyler when he asks Jack to hit him as hard as he could.
The brutal fight catches the attention of passers-by?s and after the brawl Jack begins to feels a bizarre sense of exhilaration. People start coming forward eager to feel the rush of kicking each other?s ass. More and more come to know about this unique therapy and thus begins the formation of the senseless underground society known as the Fight Club! - where everyone is encouraged to beat each other.
More and more patrons begin assembling each night in the filthy and dingy basement below a bar where they pummel each other. Soon it gains popularity and starts spreading all around the country. Things become awry and out of control when Tyler begins to transform the club into a group of anti social terrorists known as Project Mayhem, with Tyler as its head. Jack tries to stop his partner, which appears to be easier said than done, when he realizes what?s going on.
This point of the story will leave the viewer jolted and would want to watch it again out of plain curiosity. I don?t want to spoil any surprises, twists in this movie by divulging more and would suggest you watch the film.
Edward Norton and Brad Pitt have acted brilliantly and have given one of their strongest performances. There is no doubt that this movie is very violent. It was quite controversial at the time of release since it was said to glorify violence. There are a few scenes what are very brutal and barbaric- people beating each other to pulp, till their face is completely soaked in blood. There is scene where on person pulls out his teeth as blood oozes out. Sick!
One cannot put this movie in a single category- psychological, philosophical, satire or dark comedy. It dwells deeper into many aspects, not just violence. It shows the darker side of human beings. Men start realizing that they are mere pawns in today?s modern corporate society. They become members of the Fight Club to vent their rage and frustration of day to day drudgery, by getting in touch with their primitive bestial, savage instinct- pain, suffering and violence.