The IMDB Top 50 Challenge #15 Fight Club

If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll be aware that this review can go no further unless I break the first two rules. But to refuse to write about David Fincher’s combustible classic would be utterly absurd... I am going to talk about Fight Club.

Chuck Palahniuk has been writing incendiary, controversially nihilistic novels for quite some time. David Fincher has been directing stylishly violent and nihilistic movies for even longer. And Brad Pitt has been flashing his diamond-cut abdominals on celluloid since his acting debut in Thelma & Louise. But despite their many successes, maybe all three of these cultural behemoths could point to Fight Club as their crowning glory.

Director Fincher was the ideal man to helm the silver-screen version of Palahniuk’s source material – his previous films were pitch-black, paranoid, off-kilter gems like Se7en and the criminally underrated The Game. Bringing in Pitt and Edward Norton (fresh from his portrayal as a muscular Neo-Nazi in American History X) was inspired, and employing The Dust Brothers on soundtrack duties was a masterstroke. Between them, they produced one of the most iconic, oft-quoted, visually arresting films of the nineties – perhaps of all time.

Living in his impersonal Ikea-like apartment, Norton’s nameless Narrator explains how he came to reject consumerism in favour of anarchy. Suffering crippling insomnia, a doctor advises him that real misery can only be witnessed in a support group for sufferers of testicular cancer. Far from curing him of his malady, the experience thrills him, leading to an addiction for similar groups for the terminally ill. Here, he meets fellow ‘tourist’, Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), a woman with whom he forms a wholly unhealthy co-dependency.

Even stranger than Marla is Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a charismatic soap salesman whom the Narrator meets on an internal flight. After swapping business cards, the pair are forced under the same roof when the former’s apartment is blown to pieces in a mysterious gas explosion. In Tyler’s squalid home, and under his new friend’s nefarious influence, the Narrator gradually begins to let go of his neuroses and obsession with stuff and things - before finally rediscovering his masculinity in a series of testosterone fuelled brawls in car-parks and basements. These are Fight Clubs, where emancipated men can rediscover their primitive selves through visceral violence – and where the seeds of the anarchic Project Mayhem are planted.

Despite Edward Norton’s excellent performance and superb supporting turns from Bonham Carter and Meat Loaf, the movie belongs to Brad Pitt. His Tyler Durden is a cult classic character - when ASOS initially launched itself in the UK it sold copies of practically every item in Tyler’s wardrobe, and he was voted Empire’s number one film character of all time. Little wonder. Tyler Durden the man other men want to be: he’s absurdly good looking, built like a brick shit-house and cooler than a penguin’s frosty bits. But Tyler is about more than just appearances. he’s a magnetic rebel-with-a-cause, pissing in your soup, fucking your girlfriend and beating the shit out of you – but still able to convince you that his anti-consumerist, violent brand of anti-social behaviour is an attractive and viable proposition.

Admittedly, Fight Club does unravel somewhat as it hurtles towards its inevitable conclusion. This is partly due to Tyler Durden disappearing for a while, but mainly thanks to the escalation of Project Mayhem’s war on society: the Narrator’s early disillusionment is easily understood, and his gripes familiar to many – but as he becomes the unwitting ringleader of his guerrilla army it’s increasingly difficult to empathise with their all-out assault on civilisation. That said, Tyler’s shaven-headed return comes with a magnificent twist which you really ought to have seen coming...

Fight Club is an unlikely mixture of visceral violence, exhilarating action and social comment: a film about masculinity-under-attack which leaves its audience battered, bloodied and utterly exhilarated. A masterpiece.

THE IMDB TOP 50 CHALLENGE #37 American History X

“Bite the kerb.”

It’s arguably the most horrible moment of screen violence ever. A black car-jacker is shot and wounded by Edward Norton’s muscular neo-Nazi, Darren, dragged to the side of the ward and forced, with the horrific scrape of teeth on concrete, to open his mouth around the kerb. A cutaway shot to Darren’s brother ensures the stamp which shatters the teeth, jaw and face of the black youth is never actually seen. Still, it remains horribly visceral and provokes a physical reaction: it’s impossible not to gasp, wince or worse.

Ask anyone who’s seen American History X what they remember of it, and that scene is the one they will recall. But, as jarringly excellent as that scene is, does the movie warrant another look almost fifteen years after its initial release?

The storyline is slight yet powerful: Danny (Edward Norton) is a high-school kid in awe of his older brother, Danny (Norton). He’s the hate-mongering figurehead of a brutally racist group who is jailed for the manslaughter of two black youths in the attack outlined above. During his brother’s incarceration, Danny is embraced by the group and, emboldened by their support, submits a term-paper on Mein Kampf. Thankfully Derek’s spell behind bars has quelled his racists urges and, determined to turn his back on his past, he encourages Danny to abandon the group – but can either of them truly escape their pasts?

It’s a narrative which is, quite frankly, difficult to swallow. The majority of the characters are sketchily drawn and their motivations unclear – Derek’s volte-face is particularly unbelievable and the role of school principal Sweeney (Avery Brooks) is a clumsily written moral voice and hanging the plot on the writing of a journal-like school assignment is very lazy indeed. Luckily, the storytelling is considerably more skilful than the script-writing.

The central performances are magnificent. Whatever became of Edward Furlong, a young actor who seemed to have the world at his feet following Terminator 2 and his role here? He’s callow yet headstrong, believably vulnerable and manages to hold his own against a powerhouse of a performance from Edward Norton.

As Derek, Norton is simply magnificent. Although the latter half of the film sees him in a more familiar low-key guise, as a shaven-headed neo-Nazi, Norton is terrifying. Bare-chested and daubed in swastikas, he’s a hugely imposing figure. But his physique is only half the story – Darren’s fierce intellect add credibility to his racist outpourings and his eyes sparkle with evil intent. One moment in particular, as he grins evilly into the camera as the police arrest him, is malevolence personified.

The film is extremely stylishly made, too. Told in a non-linear fashion, flashbacks are presented in crystal clear black and white. It’s unusually artistic for such a brutal film, and some of the camera shots are breathtaking. Perhaps at times director Tony Kaye treads a little close to music-video territory in his use of slow-motion, but some of the lingering shots are beautifully composed. The black and white is also particularly apt for the occasional outbursts of starkly shot, matter-of-fact violence.

The reasons for Derek’s violence and hatred are hinted at and half-heartedly explored, although not particularly well. Although Derek’s fire-fighter father was killed by a black drug-dealer, the strongest hint at his mindset occurs during a mealtime conversation in which his dad reveals his own bigoted point-of-view. Expecting us to believe that a character as intelligent as Derek would adopt this lame attitude is a bridge too far.

That said, American History X remains a powerful and deeply unsettling movie which sets out to condemn racism and bigotry in all its forms – and does not shy away from revealing the bloody and ugly aftermath. The arresting imagery and set pieces which mark the journey towards the inevitable and tragic conclusion linger long in the memory and ensure that the movie continues to touch very raw nerves even today.

Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson has developed a style entirely of his own. It’s difficult to describe exactly, but includes all of the following: a sense of tragedy; large ensembles of familiar faces like Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman; smart dialogue; girls with kohl-smoked eyes; deliberate colour schemes and idiosyncratic animals. Usually they focus on dysfunctional or eccentric characters or families. Melancholic soundtracks are always a feature.

Moonrise Kingdom is no exception. The cast features Ed Norton, Harvey Keitel and Bruce Willis, each frame is saturated in a golden yellow glow, the script crackles along at a fair old lick, and the choice of music mirrors the narrative. This time, though, two dysfunctional families dominate: orphaned Sam Shakusky’s (Jared Gilman) dreadful foster carers and Suzy Bishop’s (Kara Hayward) bickering parents (a splendidly curmudgeonly Murray and Frances McDormand).

He’s a Khaki Scout camping on the island of New Penzance with his troop. They’re a finely tuned unit, schooled by anal scout leader Randy Ward (Ed Norton), but they’ve taken against young Sam – leading to his absconding in a Shawshank inspired feat of escapology. She is a desperately lonely child who seeks solace from her parents’ travails in the pages of books. Prone to outbursts of extreme anger, she is painfully aware that her folks are struggling to cope with her behaviour. There’s more than a touch of The Royal Tenenbaum’s Margot and Eli about them – especially when they bond through an amateur performance of Noah’s Flood.

Together, they elope into the countryside sparking a manhunt which employs a collection of evil boy scouts, a world weary policeman and Tilda Swinton as the personification of Social Services. It’s a whimsical journey full of wonderful visual gags, whimsical turns of events and touching romance. Sam and Suzy’s relationship is the beating heart of the movie and Anderson’s camera absolutely loves the young couple. The search for the runways tears apart and then reunites the community, with each of the actors in question giving fantastically understated performances as the narrative hurtles to its stormy conclusion.

Like the whole of Anderson’s oeuvre, this film is not likely to appeal to everyone. But if you enjoyed his previous output (or Richard Oyaode’s Submarine) you’ll love this mannered, glowing tribute to young love.