RhodyRaybo's blog

There are only a small handful of men that I have informed of my pastime
of wrestling. None of them had any interest in trying it themselves,
but all understood to some degree why I do it. But in a conversation
with one friend, he informed me of a movie that he had seen a long time
ago called "The Fight Club" which was released in 1999. He quoted the
number one rule of fight club was "you never talk about the fight
club". That was also the second rule too. Ever since he told me about
it I had wanted to see it. About a month ago I finally ordered a blu
ray copy of the film from Amazon.com for $5.99. Last night I finally
watched it in bed because I had no desire to watch what my wife was
watching in the living room.

Anyway, while I have no desire to get too deep into describing the plot,
it involves a somewhat successful young urban professional 30 year old
single guy in an unnamed city, who is very dissatisfied with his life. He is the narrator
and unnamed. The plot begins with him attending support groups for people dying from
various diseases. He seems to get his rush from attending a different
support group every night. At more than one of these groups he meets a
woman about his age with the same fetish for support groups. This is a
subplot, that I won't get into because it has little to do with the
points I will be making. While returning home on a business trip he
bumps into this odd fellow, Tyler, played by Brad Pitt who is sitting next to
him on the plane. They chat and exchange info then go their separate
ways. This is where the character's life takes a turn. He finds out
his luggage was confiscated because it was vibrating, (strange because
this was pre 9/11) then returns home only to find that his condo had
been destroyed in a fire. He pulls out the business card of the new guy
he met and gives him a call on a pay phone (yes, it's THAT dated!). They
meet in a bar and after 3 hours of drinking and talking this new friend
allows him to come stay with him but while they are in the parking lot
of the bar Tyler asks him a favor..."hit me as hard as you can". He asks
"what???". He asks again, he does hit him and a brawl begins drawing a
couple spectators. They both realize they enjoy it and after he moves
into his home which is nothing more than an old house abandoned that he
was squatting, the fights in the parking lot of this bar become a
regular thing which draws more attention and more participants. The
manager of the bar agrees to let them carry on this "fight club" in the
basement of the bar. Ok, that sounds really reasonable. Also, the 2
main characters discuss which famous people they would fight if they
could. We've all done that. This, however, is where the similarities
between what we all do here in our network and what the fighters in the
movie do ends.

The fighting that takes place when "fight club" is in session is brutal
and bloody. This makes no sense because most wrestlers hide the fact
that they wrestle and showing up at home and at work with blood all over
you and bandages over wounds would not be easy to explain. And seeing
nobody was supposed to talk about the fight club, then walking around
with multiple facial injuries is definitely something participants would
avoid at all costs. Most wrestlers in reality avoid blood at all
costs. Also, there is no mention of any erotic element to fighting.
They just fight because they want to. We all know that getting turned
on by a match is common, but not in this movie. It also seemed there
was very little bonding that so commonly takes place when guys get
together to wrestle like we do.

Finally, the most disturbing aspect of the fighters in this film is
that they are portrayed as complete psychopaths who are potential
terrorists waiting to come out. Members of the fight club are
instructed at one point to start fights with complete strangers. I
found this very unsettling especially when one member attempts to pick a
fight with a priest passing by. I know many of my wrestling buddies
and opponents attend church regularly and even are active in their
parishes, myself included. Later in the movie members of the fight club
are being recruited for some sort of militia that later makes ISIS seem
mild in comparison.

This is also a very dark movie, much like the Batman movies from the
80's and 90's. Most scenes take place at night. Also, It seems to have
a very sinister overtone to it. One can't help but get the impression
that fighters are portrayed as dark psychopaths who are unable to even
think for themselves. They seem to volunteer for the militia for no
apparent reason and yield everything over to their leader, Tyler. Also, They
also seem to care little for each other in the film. I know that I
would never want to injure any of my wrestling opponents because the
biggest factor in wrestling is BONDING. Very little of that takes place
in the film.

One final disturbing aspect of "The Fight Club", about three quarters of
the way through the movie, the plot takes some very bizarre twists to
the point that at the close of the movie, we are unsure if any of this
actually was supposed to have taken place or if the entire plot was
nothing more than a long fantasy of a very psychologically disturbed
character who should be institutionalized if he is not already! If it
was supposed to have taken place, then we as boxers and wrestlers should
find this offensive. If it was nothing more than a fantasy of the
character, then we are left with wondering what the point of all this
really was.

Though the plot held my attention, I really can't recommend this movie
on any level. However, if you like movies with bloody violence,
explicit sex, and lots of f-bombs being dropped, then this is for you.
If you are intrigued simply for the sake of watching the bloody and
occasionally gory fight scenes, I would caution you. For a movie over 2
hours long, the fight scenes are few and far between. You would waste
less of your time simply by looking for wrestling and fight matches on
Youtube.

If you do decide to watch it based on this review, then thank you for
reading. I don't plan on keeping the copy I purchased because we
generally don't keep R-rated movies in our DVD library, so if any of my
semi regular wrestling brothers want to watch this, I will gladly give
it to them. Otherwise I will probably just toss it. I have no
intention of ever watching it again.