Fight Club: Greatest Action Movie for Guys Over 30

For most guys, going to the movies is about fun. Adventure, action, comedy, buddy movies, all make us smile and walk out of the theater happy or to feel like we rented "a good one." Fight Club is a great example of how to combine all four without resorting to cliches.

When Fight Club was first released, its plot twist, that both main characters are actually just different multiple-personalities of the same person, was setup as a shock and surprise. Ironically, that isn't necessary for the movie to be both a roaring adventure ride and a contemplative look at the life of modern man.

Fight Club opens with the unnamed hero, played by Edward Norton, going about the business of his daily life working for a company as a recall coordinator. His life is smooth and simple and easy to understand, although the hectic travel schedule sometimes throws glitches into his otherwise neatly manicured life. There is only one problem, he can't sleep.

The movie introduces Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt, through a seemingly accidental encounter on an airplane flight. That event unleashes a series of other events that lead to the narrator and Durden coming to live together in an abandoned building where the cease to partake in the mainstream culture of television, radio, and magazines. For social activity, they found, and later expand, a fight club in which men of all background, races, income levels, and social stature come together in that rawest of human interactions, a fight.

The club expands into a movement and a revolution is plotted. Conceived before the events of 9/11, the plot involves the demolition of several buildings via explosives while they are empty at night. As the narrator races around the country trying to stop Tyler's new plot, he misses him seemingly by just days or hours. Until, finally, he and Tyler end up together in an empty building ready to watch their plan unfold.

What makes Fight Club such a great movie is its ability to both entertain and be about something at the same time. Too often, movies can only do one or the other with those attempting to bridge the gap often coming off lacking in one of the two.

Fight Club offers up plenty of action not just in the fight scenes, but also in the chase of Tyler, and ultimately in the narrator fleeing from his second-personality's own traps. It also offers commentary on the world we live in and our place in it. In the beginning, the narrator has an clean apartment stocked with all of the things he sees in catalogs, but he finds no peace there. Likewise, his seemingly otherwise normal career offers no joy either. In the end, the narrator is lost and bored and unhappy, though he doesn't know it.

By throwing off the shackles of modern materialism he is able to find something that means something, first in the camaraderie of a friend and then other like minded mine, and then in the love of a woman he first despised. Such a plot could easily prove boring, or preachy, but the genius of Fight Club is that it can be watched while completely ignoring the deeper aspects of the story and be enjoyed on a sheer entertainment level as well.

While pure action and buddy movies will never lose their place in the heart of guys who like to watch movies, a movie like Fight Club will be one that they watch again and again, instead of always having to find the next new thing.

You can buy Fight Club at numerous retailers, including these:

• Amazon
• Wal-Mart
• Deep Discount DVD