Fight Club

Why You Liked 'Fight Club' :

Movies, on the whole, seem to appeal to most people for one of two reasons. Either the viewer can identify with the characters and/or situation directly, as in, the viewer recognizes (or thinks he recognizes) himself in the environment of the film. OR, alternatively, the viewer recognizes a FANTASY that he associates with, seeing an environment that he or she DREAMS of being a part of. In the case of Fight Club, it painted two fantasies, one for people like me, and one for people like you.

The first fantasy, the notion of indulging in the animalistic and base nature of ourselves in a semi controlled environment, didn't appeal to most of you. You don't understand it. You are frightened by it. You find it 'weird'. So, half way through the movie, the director and writer conspire to abandon this fantasy and take the movie onto more acceptable grounds for the sake of 'market share'.

YOU liked fight club because, deep down inside, you wish you had your own little 'Tyler' guiding your life, getting you laid even when you fuck it up, making you popular even when you're a loser, conning bands of morons into following your lead, making your life exciting and so on and so forth. Well, you don't. You just hijacked a movie with a fantasy tailored to people like me and turned it into yet ANOTHER film with a half assed fantasy tailored to people like you. It's not fair. There are plenty of movies for people like you already. There are precious few movies for people like me, and you and your worthless market testing results ruined one of the few that could have been.

Why You Should Have Hated Fight Club:

David Fincher ,director of 'Se7en' and 'The Game', comes at us with yet another twisting plot where (you guessed it) you won't be certain how it's going to end. I firmly believe that he directed 'Se7en" for the sole purpose of destroying our trust. Se7en, by the way, is another movie you liked that you shouldn't have. In all fairness, though, I should say that all three of these movies had pretty good directing. It's just that, with the exception of 'The Game', they all had bullshit writing. The obvious cause? The bullshit writers. Still, Fincher directed them, and part of the blame rests squarely on his scruffy little head.

The worst thing, the WORST thing about fight club is that it started out well. The directing, even if it lacked continuity (much like mixing metaphors in poetry), still caught the eye and the mind. The initial idea, a secret club where the angst ridden youth of today can go to indulge in their more base and bestial qualities (escaping the pain of being a man, as H. S. Thompson might say.) while at the same time finding comradary instead of rejection, was perfect. But, from the start, there was a tiny voice of doubt, resting on my right shoulder, wearing white robes and a halo. "This movie," it said, "will be perfect just so long as Tyler doesn't turn it into a counter culture cult under his control." (more consonance!) So long as the movie kept to the ideal of a club centered around instinct, passion and spontaneity, it was perfect. So WHAT THE HELL DOES THE FUCK DO HALF WAY THROUGH THE MOVIE?!!!! He turns it into a counter culture cult under his control!!!! And you idiots, because you haven't got any brains and actually ENJOY seeing the same bullshit plot over and over again, bought into it. "Boy, that violence was hard to deal with," you think to yourselves, "But now that he's really an evil genius bent on bringing down this hollow society, we're back on level ground! Heck, I even like him because I'm JUST THAT off the beaten path!". You worthless fucks.

And then, to top it off, we have our token "Crying Game, well I never saw THAT coming" style twist, and it turns out that our two 'leaders' are the SAME GUY displaying an 100% unbelievable case of multiple personality disorder. And, of course, you ate it up AGAIN because you were so impressed that hollywood had 'fooled you'. You make me sick. Even when he started 'shooting' at himself after discovering his 'condition', you weren't upset. You nodded happily along, eager to swallow any bullshit line Fincher fed you because 'it was so DIFFERENT and WELL DONE.' Whatever.

Fight club was an interesting if extreme drama that turned into another crap 'thriller', tossing story, character and any remains of believability on the wayside in the process. That's it. That's all.