Fight Club

Main Cast: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf

Director: David Fincher

Plot Summary: A bored young insomniac meets a charismatic soap salesman on a plane and a new underground fad is born: the Fight Club. It quickly spreads across the land, fomenting chaos and destruction in its wake.

This drama with intense action scenes is an interesting psychological study. What does a young man do when he is bored with his job and life? In the case of this one (Norton), you join as many support groups as possible. He finds them soothing, I suppose because his life is not nearly as grim and/or pathetic as those he meets every week.

But a newcomer ruins his time: Marla Singer (Carter), a bored young woman, crashes in on his party and starts coming to all of his support groups: even, ironically, testicular cancer. It would be some feat for her to be suffering from this one! He is furious because she is a visual reminder of his own perfidy.

A meeting on a business flight with a soap salesman, and the consequent destruction of his own apartment, sends him on a different path: the fight club. He and the salesman (Pitt) find that they enjoy beating each other up. Could this be a new sport? It can. Soon the fight club is spreading across the country. But it develops into something more under the charismatic sway of the soap salesman: a way for anarchy to reign supreme. Soon small, random acts of petty vandalism lead to something even more extreme. And he is caught up in the whole cult-like atmosphere.

As it turns out the fight club is the catalyst, but by no means the end. The movie does provide men beating each other to a pulp, of course, but this violence is interspersed amidst the developing scheme of total anarchy. It is a psychological study of our “hero”, and how he copes with the cult, and how it seems to grow out of his control.

This was an interesting movie. I liked the plot, and I liked how it all ended up. It isn’t pretty by any means, and seems to love chaos just for its own sake. But if you are willing to go along with this, I think you’ll find this entertaining.