Brad Pitt enjoys the action in an underground 'fight club.'

by Catherine Marquis-Homeyer
staff editor

The first thing to know is that if you only saw the preview for this film, you don't know what this film is about.

True, there is an organization in this film called Fight Club, whose members meet in secret to engage in bare-fisted boxing matches. But the preview doesn't give a clue about how funny the beginning of this film is, how surreal it becomes, how it evolves from one kind of film to another, as this man's life takes one strange turn after another. Although the story is set in the present, many of the elements of the film resemble science fiction in its fantasy-like tone, so that the film would more properly be grouped with works like "Blade Runner," "Clockwork Orange," "12 Monkeys," and the "Matrix" (yes, I know not all of these films are the same caliber, but they share some common features of sci-fi/fantasy).

The narrator and central character of the film (Edward Norton) is an investigator for a car manufacturer, who helps determine if a recall of a product is needed. He is an insomniac who lives a solitary, directionless life -- buying expensive furniture from catalogs to fill his apartment in an endless cycle of consumerism. He begins to fill his time with strange pursuits and meets equally strange people. Unfortunately, revealing more of the plot will certainly spoil this film, but the major focus of all these events is not really the boxing matches, which is only one of the phases through which the story passes. The film goes from excruciatingly funny to surreal to nihilist to brutal to terrifying before looping back to a satisfying conclusion. Brad Pitt is maniacal and wild as Norton's partner in this wild ride, definitely not his usual pretty-boy role, and Helena Bonham-Carter is amusingly bizarre (also in a role far different from her usual) as a woman Norton meets while visiting various support groups (this will make sense when you see the film). The film contains gore, but unlike a horror film, it's not the point of the film at all. It also contains excellent acting and creative photography that plays a bit with the nature of perception, and a well-written story that engages and surprises and will make you think about perceptions about self, assumptions about the world, and your purpose in life.