Fincher uses flash-back narration, done by Edward Norton, to start telling the story of a narrator and his alter ego, played by Brad Pitt. In the opening sequence, the camera travels through his brain, finding his mouth on the receiving end of a barrel of a gun. First word he mutters are: "I can’t think of anything", said on the Pitt’s request to say something. Many minutes later, but in the same scene, near the ending of the movie, the line becomes "I still can’t think of anything", which squeezes a chuckle out of Pitt himself. "Flash-back humor", he says, "I like that". So do I! This fine sociological study in schizophrenia and megalomania is actually more funny than it is violent. My favorite line comes from the scene where Pitt and Norton break into the medical waste dump in a lyposuction clinic to get human fat in order to make expensive soap. "We’re selling rich women’s fat asses right back to them!", they say.

Two main characters meet seemingly by chance, and develop a secret underground club, where disillusioned males embark in bare-knuckling matches, driven by their individual quests for direction in life, and guided by strange code of honor, written in blood, sealed with adrenaline. There is a woman between them, but they all have different relationships within themselves. The club evolves into a guerilla, responsible for minor and not-so-minor destructive diversions around the city. Enter twist.

Norton’s character usually refers to himself as Jack, or, more specifically, Jack’s specific organ or emotion, as in "I’m Jack’s inflamed sense of rejection". He has a boring job and a jerk for a boss, but as a newly freed individual resolves his business status much in the manner Lester Burnham does it in American Beauty. He is intoxicated by Pitt’s character, Tyler Durden, who lacks inhibition, just as Jack lacks personal freedom. Tyler is Jack, but Jack of all trades. He is explosive, hedonist and a rebel. He seems like he has a purpose in life, and their newly found club is giving him all the attention his ego needs. He’s a born leader, so capable of mass control it’s not even amazing any more. His best line might be after a self-induced car-accident - "We had a near life experience!" Two actors are superb, too. Pitt has surpassed even the level of his performance in "12 monkeys", one of his finest efforts so far. And Norton still proves he’s the best actor of his generation, and I live for the day when he gets to repeat his line from the movie, after he gave a cop the impression he actually cared for his "previous life" - "I’d like to thank the Academy..."