Analysis Of Fight Club

Fight club, a club where bare knuckles meet jaws. Sweat, blood and high testosterone will christen them in a fight against their absent fathers, making them resurrected to join in a brotherhood and destroy sophistication that culls them. Jack, played by Narrator Edward Norton, is an accident investigator who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder and insomnia. Instead of drowning in his burdens by putting together the “impeccable” apartment, full of Ikea furniture, he visits support groups with terminal diseases. But after meeting Marla, another pretender of terminal cancer, the experience renews his insomnia. However, after running into Tyler Darden (Brad Pitt), he is hauled into an underground fight club and soap-making organization. Together, Tyler and Jack engage in a club for men to salvage their “manhood”. Under the façade of important issues, Fight Club is ultimately too cowardly in concept to truly take on the issues it pretends to tackle. David Fincher's 1999 Fight Club has cult significance, but aside from its massive popular success, the daring exploration of masculine identity shows today's soulless world in America.

David Fincher directs in a stirring style, and seems to truly commit his performances from a cast of highly talented actors. Especially with award winning actors, Brad Pitt and Edward Norton convey surplus poise to the film. If the movie has any single definite virtue, it is confidence; the writing and the story do not fade at all, even if they present strikingly and unlikely experiences. The story follows a beautifully structured pace as well, which enhances the power of their performances. Most importantly, the confidence remains in place when reality is shattered and the existential factor of Tyle...

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...edits. It is then that emptiness at the film's center becomes apparent, no matter how urgently it proclaims its story and themes. Unrealistically, it centers on men lamenting their loss of manhood, even as they have obviously enabled the emasculation every step of the way. It then decides that only violence is the answer, equally going to less than admirable reasoning on the parts of these victims. Lastly, it chooses to absurdly ignore the homo-social dimensions so integral to its own being. Then, presenting itself as probing important issues in a highly dramatic way, Fight Club is ultimately too cowardly in concept and execution to truly take on the real issues it pretends to tackle. Although homosexuality, hyper-emasculation and the other issues the movie encompasses, Fight club will be one of the utmost controversial movies America has yet seen to hit Hollywood.