Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden and Edward Norton as the narrator

Fight Club begins with a nameless narrator (Edward Norton) looking for meaning wherever he can find it. His job, assessing damage to totaled cars for a large automotive corporation, has left him with a walking case of vertigo. Home isn't much better. Riddled with pain and insomnia, he seeks drugs from his doctor, who simply tells him that he really doesn't know what pain is.

On his doctor's advice, the narrator seeks out those who are truly suffering. He attends any illness support group he can find: testicular cancer, tuberculosis, sickle-cell anemia. As he cries on the shoulders of those who are looking at death in the face, he finds relief and, finally, sleep. But Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) ruins all that. Made up like a dime-store Siouxsie Sioux, this suicidal junkie begins crashing the meetings Norton is already infiltrating. It's enough to drive him mad. He confronts Marla about giving up the meetings, that he's on to her tourist act. As the stubborn woman sees it, however, the meetings are cheaper than the movies and there's free coffee.

Helena Bonham Carter as Marla

When all looks hopeless, Norton meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a fast-talking soap manufacturer whose endless string of reckless information proves the guy knows his anarchist cookbook a bit too well. One thing leads to another and Tyler initiates a fight, not to prove that he's stronger, but to show his new pal just how good it feels to get out his aggression. The punches the two throw feel as good as tossing back an Amstel Light and both are soon hooked.

Soon, fellow bar patrons grow anxious to get in a few punches themselves. Tyler sees there is a need for their services and Fight Club is born. At first, this new underground of men gets off on the punches and jabs. But soon, it's clear that they need to take things up a notch. Norton tries to fight the urge to revolt against society's rules, but Tyler is only too happy to break them. He fears nothing and inspires clubs to sprout up around the country. He also takes a liking to banging Marla with all of his might, a fact that bugs our narrator because he's jealous of his new best friend putting his hands on anyone but his own bruised face.

From here on out, Fight Club combines elements of gay fantasy, end-of-the-world melodrama, Jekyll-and-Hyde horror and pure adrenaline into a cohesive, exhilarating whole. Calling it a bigger head-trip than The Matrix, which seems positively child's play in comparison, isn't an overstatement.

Obviously, director David Fincher (working from a dazzling script by Jim Uhls, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk) isn't venturing anywhere near familiar territory. To many, Fincher is already one sick bastard. First, he makes sure that Kevin Spacey chops off pretty little Gwyneth's head in Seven and then he tops Chubby Checker as the king of twist in the crafty Game. But Fight Club is a master achievement, a perfect vehicle for his pitch-black visions. There isn't one predictable frame of the film; he's clearly working without a net. Fincher happily looks on as gashes open, men pound their own faces into oblivion and even purposely get themselves into car crashes to push the limits of their courage. Some will say that he's teasing us, glorifying the violence that buttoned-up types are so anxious to put to rest before another high-school shooting. Rather, the director is showing us a wickedly fun time, where his characters are so numb to their lacerations and contusions that it's up to us to feel their pain for them. Deep? Maybe, but this film won't settle for letting you off the hook without thinking. If you want that, stroll down to theater 3 and take in the matinee of Random Hearts.

As Tyler, Brad Pitt finally finds a role that banks in on his strange star quality. Riding his cockiness for all its worth, he takes Tyler beyond the dark side. Norton, on the other hand, plays the straight man, the live wire and the poor schmuck without a clue, often within the same moment. He literally pummels himself constantly, making for one of the more unique physical performances in memory. Fincher also loads the background with bizarre characters, like Jared Leto, playing one of Tyler's Aryan youth members with bleached-blond hair. In a great surprise turn, Meat Loaf plays a hefty testicular cancer survivor whose hormone therapy has given him breasts bigger than Nell Carter's. His mood extremes have you empathize and fear him at the same time.

Surely, more will be made about how many punches are thrown than why the depraved souls are throwing them. But there's no doubt that the film has a bright future as a cult hit (imagine the double feature it would make with Strange Days) not to mention as one of the more provocative films of the year. It also shows, to the relief of anyone looking for a filmmaker to take chances, that Fincher isn't going to be satisfied until he's pressed as many buttons as a hypoglycemic kid in an elevator.