Fight Club (1999)

An insomniac office worker and a devil-may-care soap maker form an underground fight club that transforms into a violent revolution.

Director: 

David Fincher

Writers: 

Chuck Palahniuk (novel), Jim Uhls (screenplay)

Stars:

 Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter

Storyline

A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion. Written by Anonymous  

Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis

Box Office

Budget:

 $63,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

 $11,035,485 (USA) (17 October 1999) (1963 Screens)

Gross:

 $71,000,000 (Worldwide) (except USA)

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Did You Know?

Trivia

The film's title sequence is a pullback from the fear center of The Narrator's brain, and is supposed to represent the thought processes initiated by The Narrator's fear impulse. The sequence was conceived by director David Fincher and budgeted separately from the rest of the film. The studio told Fincher that they would only finance the elaborate sequence if the film itself was any good. After seeing a rough cut, they decided they were happy and so the sequence went ahead. The CG brain was mapped using an L-system, with renderings by medical illustrator Kathryn Jones, and was designed by Kevin Scott Mack of Digital Domain.See more »

Quotes

[first lines]
[Tyler points a gun into the Narrator's mouth]
Narrator: [voiceover] People are always asking me if I know Tyler Durden.
Tyler Durden: Three minutes. This is it - ground zero. Would you like to say a few words to mark the occasion?
Narrator: ...i... ann... iinn... ff... nnyin...
Narrator: [voiceover] With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels.
[Tyler removes the gun from the Narrator's mouth]
Narrator: I can't think of anything.
Narrator: [voiceover] For a second I totally forgot about Tyler's whole controlled demolition thing and I wonder how clean that gun is.
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Crazy Credits

The warning at the beginning of the DVD, after the copyright warnings
reads:
WARNING
If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you
read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't
you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly
can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so
impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all who
claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think
everything you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told you should
want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex.
Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a
fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will
become a statistic. You have been warned...... Tyler See more »

User Reviews

 

A unique film

15 October 1999 | by (human@alientomato.com) (Toronto) – See all my reviews

Fight Club is one of the most unique films I have ever seen. In addition to presenting a rather fresh take on life, FC also presents its material in a fresh way. My main interest in the film is in that, in my opinion, it does not present characters for us to think about. Rather, it presents actions for us to think about. I will say that I cannot recall *ever* having been "asked" by a film to both suspend my disbelief the way this film asks in its third act AND at the same time come to terms with an understanding that there is no room--or need--for disbelief.

Perhaps these comments will not make sense to the average movie goer who will dismiss this film--and, unfortunately, its premise--as another hollywood flick filled with gratuitous violence. I'd go as far as to say that this film is not about violence. It is about choices. It is about activity. It is about lethargy. It is about waking up and realizing that at some point in the past we've gone to the toilet and thrown up our dreams without even realizing that society has stuck its fingers down our throat.

I would argue that anyone caught, at some point in their lives, between a rock and a hard place--anyone who has reached bottom on a mental level--anyone who has uttered to themselves "Wait, this isn't right. I would not do/say/feel what it is that I just did/said/felt... I do not like this. I must change before I am forever stuck being the person that I am not." These people, they will know what I'm talking about. These people will not only recognize the similarities between Edward Norton's character and themselves--they will be uncomfortably familiar with him. These people will appreciate Fight Club for what it is: a wake up call that we are not alone.

As David Berman once said: "I'm afraid I've got more in common with who I was than who I am becoming." If this sentence makes any sense to you, go see Fight Club. You won't regret it.

L.