Fight Club: Mischief. Mayhem. Soap.

In 1999, a little movie called Fight Club made it's debut to theaters all across America. Based on the Chuck Palahnuik novel by the same name, it illustrates the emotional journey of a soap salesman and a white collar office employee as they discover a way to vent their aggression (by beating each other up) one night after drinking. Before they know it, many other disgruntled workers are watching them and some even want a turn in the ring, giving birth to what they called Fight Club. At first glance it seems like another action movie with a slightly different premise, as illustrated by this trailer:

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi781228825/

And it was this mismatched marketing campaign that would lead to this film tanking in the box office. And it's a shame, because this movie is not only brilliantly acted and shot stylishly, but is quite a commentary on the consumer driven, capitalistic America that we live in today. But even that is only one of the many themes of the movie. In it's 2 1/2 hour running time the viewer sees concepts that probably could have had their own movie, such as one of the character's schemes to make soap from human fat that he steals from a liposuction clinic and sells to department stores at $20 a pop, or even a collection of books that the narrator of the movie finds titled something like "I am Jack's Liver" or "I am Jack's Colon", a recurring joke in the movie. The idea of an underground boxing club is interesting enough and yet it is only secondary here. And in the midst of all of this chaos there is a twist near the end of the film that will completely shock you. I don't want to spoil it, but anybody who wants to see an action movie with some depth, or a complex movie with some fight scenes owe it to themselves to check this one out.