October 31, 1999 -- "Fight Club" is a funny, powerful, flashy, tragic film that plays with your perceptions and with your preconceptions about movies and society.

"Fight Club" breaks the rules. The characters look you straight in the eye and tell you what the special effects you are seeing really mean. It uses slashing editing, subliminal cuts, and a jerky film-coming-out-of-the-sprocket effect to shake you up. It is no-holds-barred film making that is, like its characters, way out over the edge. The first time I saw the film, it broke during the final few minutes of the movie. The device that holds the film against the projector malfunctioned, causing the film to clog and eventually melt. This film is so odd, at first I thought the effect was part of the movie, not an actual projector malfunction.

To give you an idea of how in-your-face this movie is, one of the main characters, Tyler Durden, (played by Brad Pitt of "Meet Joe Black"), works in a movie theater and tells the audience about the little spot that appears in the top right part of the screen, telling the projectionist to switch projectors (seldom done nowadays because large platters now carry all the reels of film spliced together) and how Durden, a sort of social guerrilla prankster, splices nude scenes, like subliminal messages, into family movies. We see these little spots and subliminal messages in the rest of the movie, as if Tyler has been sabotaging it. These devices are used inventively as transition points in the story.

The film also leads the viewer off on a merry chase with numerous flashbacks, starting at the end, going back to the beginning, and then breathlessly zig-zagging back to the end. The flashbacks are very deftly handled by director David Fincher and if he, along with cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth and film editor Jim Haygood don't get Academy Award nominations for their work in this film, it will be crime.

Despite the helter-skelter style of the film, it makes perfect sense, although in order to see how subtly it is put together, you need to see it more than once. In that way it reminds me of "The Usual Suspects," although this movie has a lot more energy and moves much faster than that one did.

The story starts with the depressing life of Jack (played by Edward Norton of "American History X"). Jack has a soul-sucking job for a car company. He calculates whether it is cheaper for the company to recall defective automobiles or to settle the injury and death claims out of court. He can't sleep.

On a business flight, Jack meets Durden, who says he sells soap. We find out later he has many jobs, one of which will make you think twice about ordering chowder at the restaurant. Durden seems as free as Jack is stuck in his dreary life. Shortly after they meet, Jack decides to move into a ramshackle house with Durden.

The two start fight club as a way to work off their anger and frustration at modern life, where men aren't really men anymore. "How can you know who you are if you've never been in a fight?" Durden asks. Soon, however, the club expands to guerilla social pranks, such as changing the message on billboards, changing the prices of video rentals and changing the emergency procedures pamphlets on planes to show the horror of a real emergency.

Soon, these "Homework Assignments" that Durden dreams up become more violent, such as vandalism in a building with two fires in windows forming the eyes of a smiley face painted on the building. The vandalism becomes more and more serious until a top city official declares it his top priority to find and eliminate the group.

At this point, Jack and Durden, and other members of Fight Club, grab the official and threaten him. Durden tells the official something like "We are the people who make the city run, we wait your tables, we make sure your calls go through, we protect you while you sleep. Don't fuck with us." In short, it is a sort of proletariat revolution against the bourgeoise. It is also a revolt against a society that sells you on consumerism as way to happiness, success, sex and beauty. Durden preaches that not only will you not get those things, you are going to die in the attempt. Full confrontation with life and death are key elements in Durden's philosophy.

It is not a philosophy, however that bears close scrutiny. There are obvious similarities to Hitler and his Brownshirted minions who followed him without giving the matter much thought. This could be viewed as a cautionary tale about blind allegiance to one man and his ideas. You never know where it is going to lead. This film, however, does not pretend to be profound. It really isn't a film about the evils of a consumer-driven society, or the evils of a charismatic leader bent on anarchy, it is more about madness and how seductive madness can be.

Durden begins to build an army of loyal disciples dedicated to his anarchic vision. At this point the film takes on more of an edge and it becomes more surrealistic as well. We are plunged into the heart of darkness and madness. A shocking twist wrenches the viewer around 180 degrees. The viewer suddenly realizes he doesn't know what is real anymore. The movie ends with yet another bizarre, apocalyptic comic twist. It is a shocking, disconcerting thrill ride. It is also one of the best films of the year.

Norton, Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter (Durden's girlfriend) provide excellent lead acting, supported by fine work by Meat Loaf (of "Crazy in Alabama") as big-breasted Robert Paulson) and an almost unrecognizable Jared Leto ("Thin Red Line") as Angel Face. This film rates an A.

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