Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6179 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-03-05
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Box set, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 133 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
All films take a certain suspension of disbelief. Fight Club takes perhaps more than others, but if you're willing to let yourself get caught up in the anarchy, this film, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, is a modern-day morality play warning of the decay of society. Edward Norton is the unnamed protagonist, a man going through life on cruise control, feeling nothing. To fill his hours, he begins attending support groups and 12-step meetings. True, he isn't actually afflicted with the problems, but he finds solace in the groups. This is destroyed, however, when he meets Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), also faking her way through groups. Spiralling back into insomnia, Norton finds his life is changed once again, by a chance encounter with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), whose forthright style and no-nonsense way of taking what he wants appeal to our narrator. Tyler and the protagonist find a new way to feel release: they fight. They fight each other, and then as others are attracted to their ways, they fight the men who come to join their newly formed Fight Club. Marla begins a destructive affair with Tyler, and things fly out of control, as Fight Club grows into a nationwide fascist group that escapes the protagonist's control. Fight Club, directed by David Fincher (Seven), is not for the faint of heart; the violence is no holds barred. But the film is captivating and beautifully shot, with some thought-provoking ideas. Pitt and Norton are an unbeatable duo, and the film has some surprisingly humorous moments. The film leaves you with a sense of profound discomfort and a desire to see it again, if for no other reason than to just to take it all in. --Jenny Brown

Synopsis
FIGHT CLUB is narrated by a lonely, unfulfilled young man (Edward Norton) who finds his only comfort in feigning terminal illness and attending disease support groups. Hopping from group to group, he encounters another pretender, or tourist, the morose Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter), who immediately gets under his skin. However, while returning from a business trip, he meets a more intriguing character--the subversive Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). They become fast friends, bonding over a mutual disgust for corporate consumer-culture hypocrisy. Eventually, the two start Fight Club, which convenes in a bar basement where angry men get to vent their frustrations in brutal, bare-knuckle bouts. Fight Club soon becomes the men's only real priority; when the club starts a cross-country expansion, things start getting really crazy. Like Tyler Durden himself, director David Fincher's FIGHT CLUB, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, is startlingly aggressive and gleefully mischievous as it skewers the superficiality of American pop culture. Outstanding performances by Norton and Pitt are supported by a razor-sharp script and an arsenal of stunning visual effects that include computer animation and sleight-of-hand editing. One of the most unique films of the late 20th century, FIGHT CLUB is a pitch-black comedy of striking intensity.

Customer Reviews

aspect
Why does this "definitive" version have an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, while the previous version had 2.40:1?

Moody
A dark, moody, disturbing and really gripping film, with some great quotes. Ed Norton is absolutely awesome as the 'office monkey' who hits rock bottom spiritual-bankcruptcy as his very being is crushed beneath his soulless existence. Brad Pitt is great as his quirky, twitchy journey-companion.

The whole thing is a very dramatic alternative take on Martha Stout's 'Myth of Sanity' and also is an oblique commentary on the human condition and the edge of the abyss to which he has brought himself.

As others have probably noted, it ends with a spectacular twist. Also, the film stands rewatching in light of knowing what happens at the end, you can then spot all kinds of quirks and anomalies throughout the film that now make sense. Fantastic!

Stunning peice of cinema gold
So, it's a film which spouted inevitable tabloid controversy, didn't do terribly well at the box office, got at best mixed reviews by critics, then through word of mouth and fast rocketing DVD sales has easily entered into every top films list composed since. It's appropriate that Fight Club's true quality was revealed to the critics by the public rather than the other way around.
The film follows Edward Norton's insurance drone, a bored, soulless man who feels emasculated and numbed by his pointless existence. He lives out his life like anyone else, dull job, IKEA furniture, he's as uniform and grey as any man you pick out on the street.
His life, however, takes a dramatic turn when he meets Tyler (played by Brad Pitt in his best acting role to date). Tyler is charismatic, intelligent, and intriguing. When Norton's apartment is destroyed in a mysterious accident Pitt invites him to crash at his, but then comes the critical request 'hit me'. And so it begins, the two new friends begin holding recreational fights in parking lots which quickly blossom into a the Fight Club of the title where frustrated, emasculated, average men can beat the living hell out of each other with their bare fists.
These fights aren't vindictive, these men are not enemies, the fights make these men friends, comrades, drifting souls all screwed over and repressed by the same system. We often see them embracing with almost post-coital grins on their faces in the bloody aftermath of a fight. Fighting reminds Jack (Norton's character is actually nameless but most refer to him as Jack) not only that he is alive, but that he is a man, that there is a fundamental primal part of him which can be repressed by society but never eradicated completely.
The Fight Club quickly spawns Tyler's new and secretive idea, Project Mayhem. The culmination of Project Mayhem is stunning but I won't tell you what that is because it would spoil the movie.
This is a very deep and multi-layered film, what do you think it's about? Is it a satire on the way feminism, though achieving liberation for women, has made men's liberation next to impossible due to anti-male prejudice? Is it and expression the basic unfulfillment and frustration of the everyday person in a capitalist society? Is it an eye-opening perspective on the way our most basic needs become repressed and dirtied by modern life? I'm not going to tell you, I know what I think, but this film is so deep and open that half the point is trying to work out what it says TO YOU.
So why buy it? It's smart, it's brutal, it's highly re-watchable, and it's a film everyone (men and women alike) needs to see. One of those 'greatest films ever' that actually deserves the title.
I could write a ten page essay on this film, but for now I'll just leave you with a few words of advice: Go and watch it now, it's truly brilliant.
"My eyes are open"