Synopsis: A losery man and his very cool friend start an exclusive 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."). The club grows into something of a terrorist organization determined not to kill or hurt people, but to free them from the shackles of modern living. Also, they make soap.
Why I Liked This Movie: The acting is superb. The music is fun. There is a huge twist towards the end that will make you watch it even more closely when you watch it again. And again. And again.
Also, as you may have discerned from the title, there is fighting. When you're a high school foot ball player, odds are that you like competition, and one on one fighting is kind of the ultimate sort of competition. In addition, a movie where one on one fighting serves as a means of working through post-modern hubris, well, that's film I can get behind.
I must take this opportunity to point out that although I love this movie, I cannot stand Ultimate Fighting Championship. I saw a clip of that one time where this guy, apparently, dislocated his neck, which meant that the top of his head pointed towards his feet. Yuck.
Why I Didn't Like It: At first, I thought that I wouldn't like it because it starred Brad Pitt, who I, at the time, thought was just another pretty face. However, largely through his excellent performance here, he has grown into being one of my favorite actors.
Why It's on the List: For better or for worse, this movie has probably influenced my thinking more than any other film. This movie was my first glimpse into existentialism, which, in a nutshell, is the realization that much of what goes on in the world is a subjective matter rather than and objective one. The plot twist in this movie seeks to convey (in my mind, at least :) ) that even what we see with our own eyes and feel with our hands can be the most subjective experience of all.
Another thing that this movie presents is the view that we are flawed. Now while Christians call this sin, the conclusion that the movie makes is not to run to a religion, but instead to themselves, from whence all meaning is derived anyway.
These are some of the reasons that this movie is my favorite. Because of the plausibility of the worldviews it presents, I am challenged and encouraged to think about what I believe and why I believe it every time I watch it, and any movie that can cause a person to evaluate everything that they have ever believed about right and wrong and good and evil is a work of art, in my opinion.
As a side note, this movie was released in 1999. Because of everything that goes on in this movie, I seriously doubt that it could even have been made, let alone released, after September 11, 2001. And I further think that had it been released after that, I probably wouldn't have liked it nearly as much.
1 comment:
I want you to hit me as hard as you can...
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