Fight Club

People always ask me, “What is your favorite film.” I hate answering that question because there are so many movies I would choose as my favorite depending on my mood. So, Fight Club is usually the answer I give because in many ways, it is my favorite film.

When it was released in 1999, I was pretty fed up with my life. Corporate America was becoming more and more powerful and I was wondering what the hell was happening to free-thinking anarchists who were sick of the establishment.

Fight Club was either a love letter to those aging anarchists and punk rockers who were starting to rage against the machine once more, or it was a condemnation of that same group and a challenge to wake the f*ck up and do something with their lives. Perhaps it was neither one of those things? Perhaps it was just a movie. Entertainment maybe? It stirred something in many of us who looked at our dead end jobs and our relationships and made us wonder if maybe we hadn’t bought into the biggest lie of all time.

All of the philosophical rambling aside, Brad Pitt’s good looks burns your eyes. Edward Norton gives what will probably be remembered as the role of his career, and David Fincher dooms the rest of his career with a movie too brilliant to ever top.

Seriously, Fight Club is the best movie of the 1990’s, if not of our lives.

Terry Osterhout
May 2005