- Have you heard about the guy that invented Fight Club? "They say he was born in a mental institution, and he sleeps only one hour a night...Nobody knows what he looks like, and he has facial reconstructive surgery every three years...He's a great man...Do you know about Tyler Durden?"
- If the narrator (Edward Norton) is surprised to find out that Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) is being credited as the sole founder of Fight Club, that's nothing compared to the surprises still to come. But, as the film does, let's go back to how it all started. The narrator is initially an insomniac who finds himself drowning in a world overflowing with Swedish furniture, corporate coffee shops, and "versatile solutions for modern living." Equally unfulfilling is his job, which requires him to jet around the country inspecting car wrecks when he's not sitting at a desk pondering his bosses' "cornflower blue ties" and "primary action items." The narrator's life is so empty that he begins going to support groups for diseases that he doesn't even have. That's where he meets Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), a rock bottom-dwelling depressive whose smoking doesn't go over well at tuberculosis night. The narrator immediately dislikes Marla because "her lie reflected (his) lie," so the two agree to alternate meetings. In the meantime, the narrator continues to watch cable in anonymous hotel rooms and to eat pre-packaged airline meals alongside his "single-serving friends." That's when he first meets Tyler.
- Tyler is everything the narrator wants to be. He drives a nice car (don't ask whose), sells homemade soap (don't ask about the ingredients), and as for his side jobs...well, just don't ask. Basically, Tyler lives a life that is completely free from the responsibilities and restrictions of modern life, including the usual prohibitions against violence and mischief. It is because of Tyler's reckless spontaneity that it doesn't seem so odd when he asks the increasingly despondent narrator to hit him. Some clumsy punches are thrown, and the first Fight Club is born. As the narrator notes, "after fighting, everything else in your life got the volume turned down." To them, it's much easier to deal with everyday life when you know you'll get to pummel somebody at the end of the week. Soon, Tyler and the narrator are sharing the same dilapidated house, philosophizing over which historical figures they would fight and why.
- The evolution of Fight Club follows a trajectory similar to that of the best cults and religions. After the initial revelation, Tyler hands down a set of eight laws to a small group of followers. They meet weekly, and "when the fight was over, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered. We all felt saved." Despite the air of secrecy, it isn't long before they've gathered a small army. Tyler begins issuing orders that are initially mischievous, but increasingly destructive. Soon Tyler is administering chemical burns, holding convenience store clerks at gunpoint, and making explosives. How did Fight Club become the dangerously anarchistic Project Mayhem? "Was I asleep, had I slept?" wonders the narrator. Little does he know that he's being set up to become a martyr to the cause.
- The big revelation, of course, is that the narrator shares more with Tyler Durden than just a penchant for fighting. This is not such a surprising plot twist, but the movie involves the audience in the violence by clobbering them over the head with this particular point. On the other hand, it is probably unreasonable for me to expect too much subtlety from something called Fight Club, and the film does succeed in many other respects. Specifically, the art direction, set design, cinematography, writing, and David Fincher's direction all work to create a world in which there is no aesthetic middle ground. Either you're sitting in the narrator's CGI-rendered antiseptic apartment ordering a yin-yang coffee table or you're staring at the palpable filth on the ugly, leaky walls of Tyler's condemned house. The underlying message of Fight Club, if there is one, should probably be taken about as seriously as the interspliced image at the film's coda, but that doesn't detract much from the experience of watching it. If you've been waiting for Hollywood to make the obvious connection between ennui, punching, and urban terrorism, this rather original offering may be the film for you.
- I failed to mention that the film also stars Zach Grenier as the boss, Meat Loaf as Bob, and Jared Leto as Angel Face.
- Fight Club knows it's a film. There are lots of frame splices and mention of cigarette burns and flashback humor.
