Like a championship boxer who only lands sucker punches, Fight Club is a bold and bracing movie that constantly throws you for a loop. Edward Norton stars as a corporate drone who tries to fill the void in his life first by buying catalog crap and then by starting an underground boxing group with a gleeful malcontent played by Brad Pitt. As their “fight club” evolves into a band of would-be revolutionaries who are determined to turn our superficial and materialistic society upside down, the movie at first seems to turn anarchy into just another trend. But a dramatic twist in the last half hour allows the movie both its rebellious voice and its surprisingly redemptive vision. By its end, director David Fincher has turned Fight Club into a riveting study of a psychosis that’s made worse by our callous consumer age.
