Fight Club

The fight-club aspect of the movie is what made me interested in seeing it. I have some fond memories of the bare-knuckle fist-fights that happened at boys camps to resolve any angst or bad feelings between other kids (though never involved in any directly). But this movie was much more than just a couple of guys duking it out because they disagreed with each other or (as you're lead to believe in the beginning) because their lives were dull.   The first half/two-thirds of the movie was rather disturbing until I started realizing what was going on (right along with the main character), and then my head started spinning.

Everyone, as far as I know, desires to do something other than what their current profession requires of them or to be somebody else or somewhere else.  Case in point: I would love to be a professional movie critic and do nothing else but watch and review movies; but that's pretty unrealistic.  How many people ever get to live out their dreams or are courageous enough to start their lives on a path towards what they want to be? It is quite evident from the story that unhappiness and mayhem result from a life where there is no direction, no end goal. Edward Norton never realized what he wanted to do/be and that made him unhappy.  What could be considered his goal in life is possibly that he wanted to help others not end up like himself.  He wanted to make sure that everyone else tried to achieve their goals, even if he had to force them to do it at gun point.

All in all, this was a very cool show, but not very moral (evident by the R-rating, so remember I'm reviewing an edited version of this). Not because there was more bad than good in the film, but that the bad wasn't shown receiving its natural consequences. [Spoiler Alert] For example, when Norton realized the chain of events he had set in place and tried to stop them from occurring, he found that everyone he could possibly think of turning himself in to was already in on his plan; they thought it a ruse that he was telling them to call it all off and even tried to impose on him some of his own consequences for trying to ruin the plan.   And then to top it off, not only are all the possible good guys turned bad, but his plan to reset humanity is successful (though we don't see the actual impact of the destruction he caused).  The ending scene had me in total disbelief and even caused me to laugh at the absurdness of it all.

I don't know if I could recommend this to anyone (even edited), but I can't deny the fact that there was a small amount of enjoyment found in watching it.  For any of you who have seen Fight Club what's your take on it? I bet you'll think twice before buying any nice perfumed soap that costs $20 a bar.