as any reasonable human being would , i must admit that occasionally i am befuddled by certain things . 
i am befuddled by fight club . 
now sometimes our favorite films are panned by critics and do not achieve critical success until much later , sometimes as much as ten or twenty years later . 
perhaps it is because these films are way ahead of their time . 
perhaps it is because they are so new and complex that only after years of allowing them to sink in do we truly appreciate and understand them . 
fight club is either garbage or brilliant , but , at least right now , i must lean toward the former . 
maybe i am subconsciously affected by word of mouth that has been slowly leaking throughout the media for weeks that this film is pure gold . 
but if it is , i sure don ? t see it . 
edward norton plays jack , a field examiner for a major automobile manufacturer . 
his insomnia , coupled with his compulsive desires to fill his world with ikea furniture to ? complete ? himself , make him a loser at the game of life . 
but when all of his worldly possessions are blown out his 15th story window , he seeks comfort in a stranger , tyler ( pitt ) whom he met on a flight home . 
once jack is sucked into tyler ? s world , he can ? t get out , literally . 
they begin fight club , an organization based on brutal and bloody fistfights that signify nothing other than to provide those that join a sense of belonging . 
as the fight club grows , things get out of control and take on cult status , beginning with one future soldier who proves his worth by standing still outside tyler ? s house for three days . 
i dare not even begin to bring up the last quarter of the film , since that contains the twist that ? explains ? the pointless journey . 
suffice it to say i was truly disappointed in fincher , who ? s previous two films , se7en and the game put him in a very slim category of truly brilliant young filmmakers of the next generation . 
this is not to imply by any means that he is no longer a genius or capable of bringing more masterpieces to the table . 
but with fight club , he has allowed his unique talent for extraordinary vision to be distorted by silly digital experiments and self-referencing film elements , such as talking to the audience about what they are seeing , telling them that the little blips in the right hand corner are signifiers that the projectionist is changing reels and that a slightly altered recurring line is good ? flashback humor ? . 
now , throughout the film ? s coarsely woven texture and over-extended plot lines , fight club is obviously trying to make various social comments about the state of the world today . 
advertisements , inter-office politics , corporations , you name it , it ? s addressed . 
 ( though the media are suspiciously absent from the institutions that are referenced . ) 
all of them play an important role . 
how so ? 
well , i can kinda just tell . 
i can ? t really put my finger on it . 
to say that starbucks and barnes & noble are taking over their respective markets and kicking out the small business owner is no big news . 
is that bad for the world ? 
probably . 
not much room for social commentary there . 
we all know that inter-office politics are just that . . . politics . 
so what was the point of all this ? 
the film seems desperate to make a point , or a number of points , but i couldn ? t figure out what they were . 
all i saw was a very bizarre social satire that was woven with strange film techniques , a bleak visual design and some fine acting . 
 ( pitt , carter , norton . . . all of them are good . 
even meatloaf is good . ) 
when you get to the end , you will most likely be filled with questions , many of which the filmmakers wanted you to ask of yourself . 
not them , because each of them would likely give you a different answer . 
fight club means what you want it to mean , i think fincher just gives you the stuff to think about . 
but it couldn ? t be more bizarre and unappealing . 
sure , it had shock value , but so did se7en and the game , and they were significantly stronger films .