Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, Jared Leto, Meat Loaf ...( see more  see more... ) , Zach Grenier

An office employee and a soap salesman build a global organization to help vent male aggression.

Flixster Users

95% liked it

965,529 ratings

Critics

80% liked it

146 critics

R, 2 hr. 20 min.

Directed by: David Fincher

Release Date: October 15, 1999

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DVD Release Date: June 6, 2000

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Stats: 89,013 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (89,013)


  • October 10, 2006
    Sick, twisted, violent, but it's still an entertaining and wild anarchic ride.
  • January 21, 2010
    Pure spun guilty pleasure fun. Outrageously hilarious, brilliantly original and brutally intense. Powerful and mind-blowing. A lean, mean, stylish, funny and explosive tough guy thriller. It packs a real had hitting punch of physical action. It's a real mind teasing and enjoyable...( read more) ride. Adrenaline pumping and provocative. Brad Pitt and Edward Norton give real deal movie star performances. This movie will knock you out. A classic. A bruising, wickedly humorous and exhilarating flick.
  • December 25, 2009
    ''Fuck off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may.''

    An office employee and a soap salesman build a global organization to help vent male ag

    ...( read more)gression.

    Edward Norton: The Narrator

    Brad Pitt: Tyler Durden

    Helena Bonham Carter: Marla Singer

    Fight Club is after looking past all the violence, extreme cinematographic techniques, computer-enhanced images, and other tricks Fight Club plays on us, we see another level to this film. It's a show about young men trying to find their place in society at the end of the 1990s.

    Edward Norton and Brad Pitt play a couple of typical guys in typical situations for men of their age, with no idea where to go with their lives. Okay, you can argue that Pitt's character isn't so typical, and that he has some idea what to do. I'd say he's only about a half-step ahead of Norton.
    Helena Bonam Carter also shines as Marla Singer, shes such a good actress and displays her fondness for roles which provide questions and deeper meanings, like her many unusual characters portrayed, Fight Club is another one of her esteemed choices, that redefined her career as an actress.
    It begins with nameless character, known in credits only as the Narrator, spiritually and physically beaten 30-year-old professional fighting insomnia and seeking a way to reconnect with the world, although I doubt he was ever properly connected to begin with. He is engaged in a losing battle with life he chose (although judging by his misery you would think somebody else chose it for him). Battle that's fought on modern day yuppie frontlines - corporate offices, airports, his expensive IKEA decorated condo, airline first class, business trips etc., and is in desperate need of something. He is essentially inside a materialist prison, a brain washed zombie clone in society,
    Watching from aside one would think that something is emotional comfort, meaning, love or a thing along those lines. Whatever it is, he seems to have found it, albeit briefly, in various disease support groups that he now starts to frequent pretending to have different ailment or disease for every day of the week. Listening to people, in some cases dying, open up about their problems gives him a visceral sense of freedom. Suddenly he can sleep and enjoy life again. "I let go. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom", he reasons. Until,as fate would have it, Marla Singer strolls into his life and messes all of that up. She, you see, is also a pretender and the knowledge that another person like him is present at these meetings bothers our Narrator to the point that his insomnia returns.
    We also understand how Tyler invents his later apparent alter ego of sorts, when we re-watch. This being represented with quick flashes of his mental perception of himself coming forth. Later in Fight Club even these quick cuts are explained, giving an extra dimension to the film itself, a film within a film within a film, worlds within worlds.
    The story then shifts to the Narrator's relationship with a strange, confident individual named Tyler Durden with whom he hits it off on a plane during a business trip, soap and crashing arise in the conversation, a random friendship results, in which we learn more. Their bond intensifies, solidifies, then after Narrator returns home and finds his condo blown sky high as a result of an electrical malfunction. This act the first escape from the possessions and materialistic shackles confining him.
    Having no family or friends to turn to in a time of need, he calls Marla, hesitates, then calls Tyler before moving in with him in a boarded-up apocalyptic house. On Tyler's insistence they create a weekly fight club that starts up as a jealously guarded secret gathering, where a few young males can nurse their anxieties and frustrations by beating each other to a bloody pulp! Bingo! This is what Narrator has been looking for all his life, a release and escape from reality.

    ''This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time.''

    Norton & Pitt's characters, went through school, graduated college, and got normal, thoughtless jobs...jobs, not careers, because they felt it was expected of them, they in a way, conformed to society. Now they don't know what's expected of them. Their fathers are gone and can no longer tell them what to do. They've been confronted with opposing images of what constitutes a man all their lives: the cold, power-hungry yuppie, the sensitive, caring friend to the environment, the politician that cheats and lies to the people he represents, the attractive actors and models who don't seem to be capable of having an original thought.
    Like so many other viewers I found this a worthwhile movie to watch for about the first third. The film deals out some hard blows against modern consumer society, that could be called daring or even paradoxical for a high budget Hollywood production. The given thesis of relief and the chance to achieve self-discovery through violence, is inane as we allow it to be. As the story develops we see that the whole Fight Club thing leads the protagonists to become some sort of a terrorist organization, culminating in a series of attacks that obviously destroy a good part of the town in the end. Isn't that turning the whole point upside down, so that the message could be: Non conformity will inevitably lead to chaos and destruction, so please avoid any critical assumptions.
    In a way I felt that in the end the script-writer attempts to apologizes for the hard strokes dispersed in the dawn of the effort.

    They're finally coming to a point where they have to figure out what they want to do with their lives, or give up life by these images society presents them.

    ''Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.''

    Whether you're offended by the violence or not, you have to appreciate the symbolic importance of the conflict. You have to appreciate wanting to be someone else, and in the end, wanting to be simply just yourself. This is essentially what Fight Club is, an eternal battle with ones self, a culmination of struggle, and a release from the prison society creates for us. Fight Club is a revolution of the mind.

    ''It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.''

  • November 2, 2009
    Great film with brilliant character portrayals by Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter.

    An intriguing film that's up for interpretation by each viewer. Therefore, it makes you think.
  • September 16, 2009
    David Fincher?s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk?s cult best seller has changed modern cinema forever. Not only has it raised the bar in editing and cinematography but it?s also stuck it?s two fingers up at lazy producers and the concept of the Blockbuster action movie. A movie has ...( read more)always got to make a profit, but it should never be the main drive behind a production. Fightclub opened up a lot of eyes in the industry as to what could be achieved. It?s also one of few productions that defied the critics by filming an ?Un-filmable book?, and to its credit, many young and gifted film-makers have followed suit and underground/Cult literature is finding its way into cinemas. Fincher had never really received the credit that was due him, even after the success of Seven. Now I think it?s safe to say he is in the top ten of best directors working today. Fightclub is a modern classic and an important, seminal masterpiece.
  • February 5, 2010
    good...luv anything with brad in
  • February 4, 2010
    David Fincher is sick in a perfect way.

    My #1 film of all time currently. NOTHING tops it...STILL. I've watched this movie like 25 times and every time I watch it, even if I gotta go take a piss, I PAUSE THE MOVIE cuz I can't miss a scene.

    Every actor is on point. Pitt is si...( read more)mply badass. Norton is amazing. Bonham Carter dominates. Fincher has such an unrelenting need to film each shot perfectly that he routinely uses over 50 takes for important scenes...dude takes his shit seriously. I think that's why I love this movie so much - every single shot is painstakingly crafted. No movie comes close to this masterpiece.

    **BEST MOVIE THERE EVER HAS BEEN AND EVER WILL BE**
  • February 3, 2010
    I'm not a big fan of Brad Pitt so I was not special happy to watch this film, but I was surprised that he can play such amazing character. Almost everyone can see yourself in this movie. It's like a mirror, you can approaches and see yourself. From first seconds you are in story....( read more)

    Incredible skills of David Fincher hits you and throw in to an amazing story. I think this film is one of the best movies from 90's. Amazing story with iconic ending.
  • February 2, 2010
    The story of this was really interesting and intriguing but confusing and muddled. I thought the way it was shown on screen was interesting and there's a lot of interesting points that can be made of masculinity, identity and mental psychosis. The acting was flawless and the cast...( read more)ing was done really well. Overall it was just a bit too insane for my liking.
  • February 2, 2010
    it's a slow paced movie with nice twist in the end. overall enjoyable

Critic Reviews


January 1, 2000
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

When you see good actors in a project like this, you wonder if they signed up as an alternative to canyoneering. full review

View more Fight Club reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments


  • XeroStealer
    November 15, 2008
    Very, Very kickass movie. Favorite by far. It made me think twice about using soap too
  • aSpaceCowboy
    September 11, 2008
    He's never been addressed by his real name in Fight Club. Though, he was credited as "The Narrator". ALSO: he was also referred to as Cornelius, Rupert, Tyler Durden, and Ozzy and/or Harry
  • Bats618
    September 1, 2008
    Anybody Know the name of Edward Norton's Character?
  • KeyserSoze93
    June 22, 2008
    Brilliant movie, maybe the most macho movie out there.
  • froboy93
    June 9, 2008
    For those of you who haven't read Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. Is missing out on a lot. The movie is awesome and is one thing, but the book is a whole level higher.
  • DramaQueenV
    May 26, 2008
    For the Ten Year Anniversary of Fight Club, Fincher is planning to bring the movie to Broadway in the form of a musical.

    At first i thought this was a joke, i saw it on an interview with Jared Leto
    (http://youtube.com/watch?v=1PWyQc2DC4I)
    And thought that it was unreal. I then searched it on the internet and it does seem as if Fincher is serious about this.

    I'm really excited to see how they do this
    and how people will react.
  • tabogolz
    March 28, 2008
    "the things you own end up owning you"
    this movie is a certified *ss kicker
  • Alexander666b
    March 26, 2008
    I agree with all of you, Fight Club is the best movie ever, and the best book, you should read it.
  • xXxHarleyxQuinnxXx
    February 12, 2008
    ...and your too...BLOND!
  • jsfan101
    February 3, 2008
    Milky Jared Leto plays Angel Face in this movie. The pretty Blond that Edward Norton beats up when he feels like breaking sometyhing beautiful.

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

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