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If the only contact you've had with this film are the teasers that ran on TV, you're probably wondering why it should turn up as an article for SF and fantasy cinema.
I grant you, if you have a weak stomach you probably won't make it all the way through without a dose of an antiemetic. This painfully funny piece of social satire is definitely not for the weak of stomach. However, if you can overcome that small problem, you're going to be glad you did. As the media manages to remember every now and then, modern society is supported by and only continues to operate because of the existence of a vast army of service workers. They clean the offices, haul off the trash, bag the groceries and clear the tables day after day, invisible and, for the most part, ignored unless they do something the people they serve don't like. In 1999, Chuck Palahniuk speculated in a novel called Fight Club which might happen if some of these invisible men were to channel their suppressed anger into action. Scripter Jim Uhls and director David Fincher (Se7en, The Game) have turned the book into a film that is, literally, frighteningly funny. Edward Norton is fantastic as the unnamed narrator, a number-cruncher who investigates automobile accidents to determine whether there is likely to be sufficient company liability to justify a recall. His cure for his insomnia is to hang out in support groups. Then he meets Tyler Durdon (Brad Pitt) on a plane. Durdon is his opposite, a complete anarchist whose only rules are the ones he makes up. It's impossible to discuss what follows without giving away all the surprises. Suffice it to say what begins as a hobby club for sadists evolves into an urban guerilla force, and the narrator's pleasure in thumbing his nose at the establishment begins to turn to consternation as the fun turns into more than he bargained for. Or is it? This movie has bite. It is a 21st Century companion to Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," using shock to force us to look at what tends to fade into the background. It also has a suggestion of revolutionary rhetoric about it, a warning that one ignores those who do most of the work and reap none of the rewards to one's peril. Fincher is terrific handling this kind of sharp satire, never once slipping into the figurative sheepish grin that says "I'm just kidding" that sometimes spoils other movies like this. Go To Page: 1 2
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