Fight Club (1999)
Action | Drama | Thriller

A ticking time-bomb insomniac (Edward Norton) and a slippery soap salesman (Brad Pitt) channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground “fight clubs” forming in every town, until a sensuous eccentric (Helena Bonham Carter) gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.

The New York Times raved that Fight Club just might require another viewing. Here’s your chance. Brace yourself.

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

User Comment: Mega-Mike (megamegamike@hotmail.com), 20 March 2001 • When I first saw the previews for this movie, it had me interested. A movie about guys who fight - it didn't seem to deep, but I thought it would provide entertainment. I had heard buzz about, a few of my friends raved about it for a few days, and I was convinced. I should see this movie. I went to my local video store and picked up the last remaining DVD. I popped it in, sat in amazement until the last credit rolled, and then watched it again. And again. And again.

This movie is dark and disturbing, however, it is equally smart and stylistic. I found it hard to watch at points, but I couldn't turn my eyes away. Fight Club makes many bold statements against the modern consumer-driven society, and produces Norton's best performance and Pitt's second best (12 Monkeys).

Norton plays an average-Joe who is living a dead-end life. He needs something to change his life. Tyler and Marla will take care of this, and that is all I want to give away. Other comments will tell you more, but I suggest you let it all sink in while watching. As for it's ending, it doesn't rival 'The Sixth Sense' - it blows it away. One of the best movie endings I've seen. Even better if you're a Pixies fan.

As for it being important, don't worry. You will be hearing about this movie. When 'A Clockwork Orange' came out, it was met with mixed reviews, deemed too dark and violent, and is now considered a classic. These two movies share quite a bit in common - both were based on great books. If you haven't read either, get to it. Politicians will use this movie as a demonstration of careless and consequenceless violence in movies, and as a perfect example of what today's youth are being influenced by.

Watch this movie, and watch it again with some of your more intelligent friends.

Summary: This is a very important movie.

Trivia:

• The reverse-tracking shot out of the trash can, an elaborate digitally animated sequence, was the very last shot to be added to the film. It required so much processing time that it almost had to be spliced in "wet" - i.e., fresh from the lab - so that the film could be duplicated on schedule. Due to the amount of reflective surfaces in the shot, it took almost 8 hours to render a single frame. The entire shot took 3 weeks to render.
  
• Author Chuck Palahniuk has stated that he found the film to be an improvement on his novel.
  
• In the short scene when Brad Pitt and Edward Norton are drunk and hitting golf balls, they really are drunk, and the golf balls are sailing directly into the side of the catering truck.
  
• The typeface used for the titles and logo is named "Fight This".
  
• Starbucks pulled their name from the coffee shop destruction scene. They didn't mind the director placing their product throughout the film, but did not want their name to be destroyed in that scene. Therefore, the gold globe crashes into a shop named Gratifico Coffee.
  
• Edward Norton lost 17-20 pounds for this role after having to beef up tremendously for his role as a Neo-Nazi skinhead in American History X. Norton achieved this form by running, taking vitamins and just ignoring the on-set catering.
  
• The sex scene between Tyler (Brad Pitt) and Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) was shot using the same 'bullet-time' technique used in The Matrix; stills cameras were set up in a circle around the bed, and each one would take a single shot in sequence. These single frames were then edited together and enhanced with CG, as both Pitt and Bonham Carter were fully clothed in motion capture suits during the shoot.
  
• Voted #4 in Total Film's 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time list (November 2005).
  
• During the shooting of the sex scene, actors Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter posed in 10 different positions from the Kama Sutra.
  
• Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter spent three days recording orgasmic sounds for their unseen sex scenes.
  
• When Tyler (Brad Pitt) catches The Narrator (Edward Norton) listening at the door as he has sex with Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), he is wearing a rubber glove. This was Brad Pitt's idea, and caused a great deal of controversy with President of Production at Fox 2000 Pictures, Laura Ziskin. She was horrified when she saw the scene and demanded that it be removed. However at a subsequent test screening, the appearance of the glove got the biggest laugh of the whole movie, prompting Ziskin to change her mind.
  
• The shot surveying Project Mayhem's destructive equipment lying in underground parking lots was a three-dimensional composition of over 100 photographs of Los Angeles and Century City by special effects photographer Michael Douglas Middleton.
  
• To ensure that Bob's (Meat Loaf) breasts and love handles hung correctly, his fat suit was filled with birdseed, so that it would 'spill' over his pants and give the impression of sagging flesh. Altogether, the suit plus the seed weighed over one hundred pounds.
  
• Make up artist Rob Bottin had to build two different fat suits for Meat Loaf - one with nipples, one without - because the filmmakers weren't sure if 20th Century Fox would approve the suit with the prominent nipples.
  
• Brad Pitt and Edward Norton both really learned how to make soap.
  
• Brad Pitt says he didn't want his parents to see the movie, but he couldn't convince them not to watch. They changed their minds after watching the chemical burn scene.
  
• In the original cut of the film, several specific brands were referenced. Besides the coffee bar (originally a Starbucks Coffee) and the video store (originally a Blockbuster Video) at the receiving end of Project Mayhem, the Narrator clearly referenced Reader's Digest (later changed to the fictional magazine "The Annotated Reader") and specifically referred to the Reader's Digest stories about Joe's body that were written by J.T. Ratcliffe. These product placements were removed at the request of these companies, whose executives did not want such product placements in light of the film's content. This entailed re-recording the Narrator's dialogue to change the character's anatomical references from "Joe" to "Jack."

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