Movie Monday #1 Review - Fight Club

The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.”

-          Tyler Durden, Fight Club

Sorry Tyler, but I’m about to break the first two rules. My bad.

Welcome to the first edition of Movie Mondays, and honestly, if you know me personally this shouldn’t come as any surprise to you. What other film could I possibly start this series off with than the amazing tour-de-force that is Fight Club. Released in 1999 and adapted from the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, this movie starred Edward Norton as The Narrator/Jack, Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, Helena Bonham Carter as Marla Singer, and even had appearances from Jared Leto of 30 Seconds To Mars fame, and 80’s/90’S rock god Meatloaf.

The synopsis for the movie is as follows:

·         A nameless first person narrator (otherwise known by the fans of the series as “Jack”, played by Edward Norton) attends support groups in attempt to subdue his emotional state and relieve his insomniac state. When he meets Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), another fake attendee of support groups, his life seems to become a little more bearable. However when he associates himself with Tyler (Brad Pitt) he is dragged into an underground fight club and soap making scheme. Together the two men spiral out of control and engage in competitive rivalry for love and power. When the narrator is exposed to the hidden agenda of Tyler's fight club, he must accept the awful truth that Tyler may not be who he says he is.

I first saw this film when I was 15 – my Dad had watched it one night when hammered, and he recommended it. As the only person I really knew who was a “movie buff” of sorts, I took his advice. Despite its 18-age rating, I managed to convince my Nan to buy it for me “for a school project”, and just like that, I was the proud owner of a movie that quite literally, changed my outlook on everything.

Not to get too personal or too deep, but I was bullied pretty bad in school. The jerks who used to pick on me in secondary school weren’t physically abusive or brutes, but their words stung, especially for a sensitive sap like myself. I was now a teenager, hormones going crazy and not really fitting in all that great in school in my first couple of years. I eventually befriended a few people (some of which who are still friends to this very day), but I always felt like an outsider, and the bullies were always there to constantly remind me of that, whether it be in class or on break/lunch times. I also wasn’t taking my parents break-up all that well, and in all honesty, I became a pretty rage-filled teenager, with my Mum unfortunately receiving the brunt of my anger. The shouting matches we had were almost a daily occurrence, and not a day goes by that I don’t feel guilty about those days.

And so comes along Fight Club, a movie that has been analysed from many various points-of-view. Whilst all valid to some degree and many can debate the true meaning of the film, my experience watching it was far more personal. I saw a movie that starred The Narrator/Jack stuck in rut in his life. An insomniac, he can’t sleep and his life doesn’t feel like it has much purpose. At the age of 15 I felt the same way, though I laugh at the thought looking back on it now a little older and wiser aged 23. But back then, I was not in a good place – my school life was horrid, my personal life wasn’t much better, and my only outlet which was writing wasn’t proving to be the escapism it once was. This movie opened my eyes, it helped me believe, it helped me fight back, it gave me hope. Sure, the character of Tyler Durden is an extremist, part of an underground movement called Fight Club, which on the surface is exactly what is sounds like, but when you look deeper it is so much more.

Fight Club is about finding yourself, who you are as a person and what difference you make to the world. You can either be a Jack of the world – going on day-by-day, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 white-collar worker. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it’s an honest living and one that many wake up to every day. However, then there are the Tyler Durden’s of the world, thinking outside the box, trying to revolutionise and change the world, one minute at a time. Of course, radicals usually overstep their boundaries, but Tyler’s efforts are still impressive nonetheless. It’s an accurate look at Generation X, a culture that spawned from the 90’s and 2000’s of men, women and children alike just existing. No grand plans, no revolutionary ideas – just there. Eat, sleep, work, repeat. Tyler Durden puts it best when addressing his Fight Club cohorts in one of my favourite monologues from any film:

“Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who have ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. Goddammit, 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 is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised by 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.”

You have no idea at the age of 15 how hard that speech hit me. I hated believing that I was going through school, 6^th Form, possibly University, just to become part of a crowd. Spending money on crap I didn’t like or particularly want, just surviving for the sake of it. I had these grand dreams of being a best-selling author, with my name in lights and money rolling in, famous perhaps, but certainly happy; all the while, bullies made my life a living hell and my situation at home was rapidly getting worse. My escapism used to be all these fantastic aspirations and dreams, but when being realistic, Tyler Durden was right. The likelihood of me achieving of these things were slim to none – and I was very, very pissed off as a result. You could say that after viewing the movie, my rebellious side that I’ve mentioned in a previous entry began to rear its ugly head, but hey, at least I was inspired.

The book itself has also influenced me greatly when it comes to my own writing escapades – my writing style specifically mirrors Chuck Palahniuk’s, which is a habit I’ve found very hard to break, even 8 years later. I’m slowly evolving and expanding as a writer, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t difficult to break free from that – I suppose that’s the message that Tyler Durden is trying to convey.

A year later, everything came to a head in my life – in a freak accident I cut my left arm wide open, resulting in an emergency trip to A&E, requiring stitches and a stern warning from the doctors about how close I was to severing tendons. From that on, it all stopped – the anger, the rage, the shouting matches with my Mum who tried so hard to be supportive. It was like all this pent up frustration just left me. I was in my final year of secondary school, I made some great mates, managed to outsmart the bullies and I never looked back. In a lot of ways, that night I had my accident mirrors the finale of the movie (which I won’t spoil here, but if you’ve seen it, I’m sure you see the comparison) – I exercised my demons and came out stronger and better for it. Without Fight Club opening my eyes to what was outside of this bubble I was trapped in, I have no idea how life may have turned out. It may sound melodramatic, heck even ridiculous and stupid to some, but I never understate how important this movie is, and how much I truly love it.

I own Fight Club on both DVD and Blu-Ray, along with a copy on my phone just to watch from time to time. I can probably recite most of the movie word for word, and I follow a Twitter page that puts up quotes from the movie daily. The ethos of the film and its spirit is instilled in me, and likely always will. Even when watching this movie for the millionth time for research, the performances of the cast still mesmerise me – and it’s always interesting that I see something new each viewing, and usually take something different away every time.

I cannot praise this movie enough. If you a film lover, and enjoy films that force you to think outside the box, and challenge you, Fight Club is for you. Don’t be fooled by the title of the movie, it offers much more than mindless violence. Trust me.

That’s me for today guys and girls, but join me on Wednesday for my next review in this first week of new content of the blog – kicking of Wrestling Wednesday, I will be looking at arguably the greatest WWE pay-per-view in history, WrestleMania X-Seven! Catch you then!

As always, thank you reading, and feel free to follow me on Twitter (@ThisIsWP) and Instagram (WILLJPOWELL).

Will