2. Fight Club (1999)
Bringing a close to the 90's was David Fincher's Fight Club. Based on Chuck Palahniuk's novel, the film is largely a coming of age story. Our narrator is an every day man who travels quite a bit for his work. Because of the constant traveling, he finds he's become an insomniac. The cure for his insomnia is attending support groups for those with testicular cancer, which provides a release of sorts for our unnamed every man. On his travels he meets Tyler Durden, who is the antithesis of everything he is. Tyler has no care for name brands, sports cars, or a life of luxury. Tyler just is. They form a bond after our narrator's apartment goes up in flames and loses everything. Part of their bonding involves fighting themselves and others in an underground fight club on a routine basis. A modern day version of the lost boys, both Tyler and the narrator live life free of any restrictions while neglecting authority figures. It's interesting to watch the change in character of our narrator. He goes from a mundane desk job to proving himself a God on the fighting circuit. He absolves himself of any attachment to the material and becomes lost in an underground society that not only defies authority, but takes pride in destroying corporate art. The actions and philosophies of Tyler Durden are reflective of many disenfranchised groups of the day. The 90's saw the rise of alternative media and Tyler's mentality was a reflection of those ideologies. People were more vocal, music became more visceral, and with the ushering in of the internet, news and socio-economic issues were available at a whim. The violence in Fight Club is more a reaction to the voiceless lashing out in ways that provided an outlet where there was none.