Review of Fight Club

Not all that glitters is gold. Sometimes it's just a piece of shit with glitter on it.

From the very first time I saw the trailer for it this summer, I knew that my film had arrived. The screen flickered hypnotically with a fast-paced montage of punches, kicks, explosions, and various other bits of violent imagery glimpsed only long enough to suggest its bloody nature but not its actual content. If there were any epileptics in the theater, I'm sure they were writhing on the floor. But then, when my head was ready to explode from sensory overload, the eye of the storm: a close-up of Brad Pitt in profile imparting his sage-like wisdom onto the audience:

"The first rule of Fight Club: you do not talk about Fight Club. Second rule of Fight Club: you do not talk about Fight Club."

Most people in the theater started laughing at that point. Me? I had goose bumps. While my tastes are varied and eclectic, my guiltiest pleasure is a lust for trash. Make it devoid of meaning. Let the acting be fourth-rate. Fuck it if it makes any kind of sense. As long as I have my eye-candy with all the pretty movie stars and the expensive explosions I'm hap-py. Set it to a shitty techno-industrial-dance soundtrack and I'm in heaven.

Now I'll be the first to admit that all the aforementioned criteria have been met a thousand times over and often with little success, but Fight Club is going to be different. It might very well be the worst movie ever, and that will be its saving grace. It's a trashy movie starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, ES '91. Pitt calls it "the role of his career," ominous words for a man who has something of a superhuman power for picking bad roles in total bombs (think Meet Joe Black, Seven Years in Tibet, and The Devil's Own). Norton is obviously just tired of being in good movies. The film's director, David Fincher, is perhaps the very definition of a "one-hit wonder" (ask yourself, what has he done for me since Seven? The Game. Yeah, thanks for nothing.) Finally and most importantly, it's based on an extremely lame book, Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name. Who the hell's Chuck Palahniuk?

No one really, but his writing is often compared to that of J.G. Ballard, who penned Crash. Wait, didn't they make a really bad movie out of that?

Yup, and that's even more evidence in favor of Fight Club being the best bad movie in the world. That's why, after concluding my research, I ran, not walked, straight to Barnes & Noble. When they were out of stock, I went straight to Amazon.com. It was only available in hardcover, so I splurged. My addiction to all things wretched knows no bounds.

Now let me tell you a couple things about Fight Club the book. It took me less than a day to finish; I read it on subways, I read it waiting for phone calls, I read it until five a.m. The whole time a single question plagued me: is this a good book? I read it compulsively, which definitely earns it the appellation of "page-turner," but only while groaning to myself as I read a particularly ridiculous passage. Sometimes, I even rolled my eyes at the book, as if my dissatisfaction would encourage it to rewrite itself and be a better book in the future.

To no avail, though. The book is sick and devoid of all literary merit. It depicts the world of career middle-management guy Jack (Norton) who has become so jaded by life that he attends different cancer support groups every night of the week because only by pretending that he's dying can he feel a little like he's alive. Even this starts to wear thin, and that's when Jack meets Tyler (Pitt). Together, they begin a fast and furious descent into a nihilistic, masochistic oblivion. Out of their bleak minds springs forth Fight Club—a one night a week event where two men beat the bag out of each other until one gives up or falls unconscious. Before they know it, Fight Club meets every night of the week in cities across the country, and Jack and Tyler are treated like gods wherever they go. That's when things begin to get a little out of hand.

It's not an especially clever idea. It wasn't an especially good book. Palahniuk's writing is so self-consciously bleak and apathetic that I imagine he's the guy who never grew out of his teen angst phase, still listens to Marilyn Manson, and cries whenever someone mentions the untimely death of Kurt Cobain. Despite this, the whole time I was reading the book, I couldn't shake the idea that it would make a great film.

Graphic by Shawn Cheng.

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