as any reasonable human being would , i must admit that occasionally i am befuddled by certain things . i am befuddled by fight club . now sometimes our favorite films are panned by critics and do not achieve critical success until much later , sometimes as much as ten or twenty years later . perhaps it is because these films are way ahead of their time . perhaps it is because they are so new and complex that only after years of allowing them to sink in do we truly appreciate and understand them . fight club is either garbage or brilliant , but , at least right now , i must lean toward the former . maybe i am subconsciously affected by word of mouth that has been slowly leaking throughout the media for weeks that this film is pure gold . but if it is , i sure donıt see it . edward norton plays jack , a field examiner for a major automobile manufacturer . his insomnia , coupled with his compulsive desires to fill his world with ikea furniture to ³complete² himself , make him a loser at the game of life . but when all of his worldly possessions are blown out his 15th story window , he seeks comfort in a stranger , tyler ( pitt ) whom he met on a flight home . once jack is sucked into tylerıs world , he canıt get out , literally . they begin fight club , an organization based on brutal and bloody fistfights that signify nothing other than to provide those that join a sense of belonging . as the fight club grows , things get out of control and take on cult status , beginning with one future soldier who proves his worth by standing still outside tylerıs house for three days . i dare not even begin to bring up the last quarter of the film , since that contains the twist that ³explains² the pointless journey . suffice it to say i was truly disappointed in fincher , whoıs previous two films , se7en and the game put him in a very slim category of truly brilliant young filmmakers of the next generation . this is not to imply by any means that he is no longer a genius or capable of bringing more masterpieces to the table . but with fight club , he has allowed his unique talent for extraordinary vision to be distorted by silly digital experiments and self-referencing film elements , such as talking to the audience about what they are seeing , telling them that the little blips in the right hand corner are signifiers that the projectionist is changing reels and that a slightly altered recurring line is good ³flashback humor² . now , throughout the filmıs coarsely woven texture and over-extended plot lines , fight club is obviously trying to make various social comments about the state of the world today . advertisements , inter-office politics , corporations , you name it , itıs addressed . ( though the media are suspiciously absent from the institutions that are referenced . ) all of them play an important role . how so ? well , i can kinda just tell . i canıt really put my finger on it . to say that starbucks and barnes & noble are taking over their respective markets and kicking out the small business owner is no big news . is that bad for the world ? probably . not much room for social commentary there . we all know that inter-office politics are just that . . . politics . so what was the point of all this ? the film seems desperate to make a point , or a number of points , but i couldnıt figure out what they were . all i saw was a very bizarre social satire that was woven with strange film techniques , a bleak visual design and some fine acting . ( pitt , carter , norton . . . all of them are good . even meatloaf is good . ) when you get to the end , you will most likely be filled with questions , many of which the filmmakers wanted you to ask of yourself . not them , because each of them would likely give you a different answer . fight club means what you want it to mean , i think fincher just gives you the stuff to think about . but it couldnıt be more bizarre and unappealing . sure , it had shock value , but so did se7en and the game , and they were significantly stronger films . 
