Fight Club
By Steven Perdue, Blockbuster.co.uk

Do you remember 1999? No, really. The onset of the Millennium? The angst? The trepidation? The feeling that, at the stroke of midnight on December 31st, your toaster might run amok and eat your sister or that the world would fall apart at the seams, that it would quite literally be Apocalypse Now?

Remember all that? Now try thinking of a film that summed up that fear, the fear of an entire disenchanted generation, and gave you a channel through which you could vent your rising panic… No, it’s not The Matrix. It’s Fight Club.

Beautifully shot, blisteringly edited with pitch perfect performances and some of the most deliciously quotable dialogue of any movie, ever. Fight Club remains the jewel in David Fincher’s gaudy crown.

To paraphrase Tyler Durden, Fight Club doesn’t offer salvation, or redemption instead it places an emphasis on self-help in the most literal sense. It’s a cinematic kick up the ass for anyone with a dead-end job and the distinct feeling that life may well be passing them by. It’s cool, it’s stylish, it caused a tabloid media frenzy and it’s got Meat Loaf with bitch-t*ts!

Most of all it has an important idea at its very centre: The idea that, no matter what happens to you, no matter how low you get as a human being you can deal with it. Now that’s one hell of a comforting thought at 11.59pm on December 31st 1999 when the toaster is eyeing up your sister and ominous clouds are gathering above your house…