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Fight Club

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All films take a certain suspension of disbelief. Fight Club takes perhaps more than others, but if you're willing to let yourself get caught up in the anarchy, this film, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, is a modern-day morality play warning of the decay of society. Edward Norton is the unnamed protagonist, a man going through life on cruise control, feeling nothing. To fill his hours, he begins attending support groups and 12-step meetings. True, he isn't actually afflicted with the problems, but he finds solace in the groups. This is destroyed, however, when he meets Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), also faking her way through groups. Spiraling back into insomnia, Norton finds his life is changed once again, by a chance encounter with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), whose forthright style and no-nonsense way of taking what he wants appeal to our narrator. Tyler and the protagonist find a new way to feel release: they fight. They fight each other, and then as others are attracted to their ways, they fight the men who come to join their newly formed Fight Club. Marla begins a destructive affair with Tyler, and things fly out of control, as Fight Club grows into a nationwide fascist group that escapes the protagonist's control.

Fight Club, directed by David Fincher (Seven), is not for the faint of heart; the violence is no holds barred. But the film is captivating and beautifully shot, with some thought-provoking ideas. Pitt and Norton are an unbeatable duo, and the film has some surprisingly humorous moments. The film leaves you with a sense of profound discomfort and a desire to see it again, if for no other reason than to just to take it all in. --Jenny Brown

Seven

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The most viscerally frightening and disturbing homicidal maniac picture since The Silence of the Lambs, Seven is based on an idea that's both gruesome and ingenious. A serial killer forces each of his victims to die by acting out one of the seven deadly sins. The murder scene is then artfully arranged into a grotesque tableau, a graphic illustration of each mortal vice. From the jittery opening credits to the horrifying (and seemingly inescapable) concluding twist, director David Fincher immerses us in a murky urban twilight where everything seems to be rotting, rusting, or molding; the air is cold and heavy with dread. Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt are the detectives who skillfully track down the killer--all the while unaware that he has been closing in on them, as well. Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey are also featured, but it is director Fincher and the ominous, overwhelmingly oppressive atmosphere of doom that he creates that are the real stars of the film. It's a terrific date movie--for vampires. --Jim Emerson

Meet Joe Black

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Meet Joe Black seemed almost fated to fail when it was released in 1998, but this romantic fantasy--a remake of 1934's Death Takes a Holiday--deserves a chance at life after box-office death. Although many moviegoers were turned off by director Martin Brest's overindulgent three-hour running time, those who gear into its deliberate pace will find that Meet Joe Black offers ample reward for your attention.

Brad Pitt plays Death with a capital D, enjoying some time on Earth by inhabiting the body of a young man who'd been killed in a shockingly sudden pedestrian-auto impact. Before long, Death has ingratiated himself with a wealthy industrialist (Anthony Hopkins) and pursues romance with the man's beautiful daughter (newcomer Claire Forlani), whom he'd briefly encountered while still an earthbound human. Under the assumed identity of "Joe Black," he samples all the pleasures that corporeal life has to offer--power, romance, sex, and such enticing pleasures as peanut butter by the spoonful.

But Death has a job to do, and Meet Joe Black addresses the heart-wrenching dilemma that arises when either father or daughter (the plot keeps us guessing) must confront his or her inevitable demise. The film takes its own sweet time to establish this emotional crisis and the love that binds Hopkins's semidysfunctional family so closely together. But if you've stuck with the story this far, you may find yourself surprisingly affected. And if Meet Joe Black has really won you over, you'll more than appreciate the care and affection that gives the film a depth and richness that so many critics chose to ignore. --Jeff Shannon

Ocean's Eleven

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Ocean's Eleven improves on 1960's Rat Pack original with supernova casting, a slickly updated plot, and Steven Soderbergh's graceful touch behind the camera. Soderbergh reportedly relished the opportunity "to make a movie that has no desire except to give pleasure from beginning to end," and he succeeds on those terms, blessed by the casting of George Clooney as Danny Ocean, the title role originated by Frank Sinatra. Fresh out of jail, Ocean masterminds a plot to steal $163 million from the seemingly impervious vault of Las Vegas's Bellagio casino, not just for the money but to win his ex-wife (Julia Roberts) back from the casino's ruthless owner (Andy Garcia). Soderbergh doesn't scrimp on the caper's comically intricate strategy, but he finds greater joy in assembling a stellar team (including Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Carl Reiner) and indulging their strengths as actors. The result is a film that's as smooth as a silk suit and just as stylish. --Jeff Shannon


 

Spy Game

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A thinking person's thriller, Spy Game employs dense plotting without sacrificing the kinetic momentum that is director Tony Scott's trademark. The film has the byzantine scope of a novel, focusing on veteran CIA operative Nathan Muir (Robert Redford), whose protégé Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) is scheduled for execution in a Chinese prison. It's Muir's last day before retiring (cliché alert!), and Bishop is being deliberately sacrificed by oily CIA officials to ensure healthy trade with China. Muir has 24 hours to rescue Bishop and his perfunctory love interest (Catherine McCormack), and Spy Game connects the mentor's end-run strategy to flashbacks of his student's exploits in Berlin, Beirut, and beyond. Ambitious but emotionally bland--and not as exciting as Scott's Enemy of the State--Spy Game offers pass-the-torch humor between leather-faced Redford and pretty boy Pitt, and although their dialogue is occasionally limp, the movie compensates with efficient style and substance. --Jeff Shannon

The Mexican

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Part road movie, part romantic comedy, part thriller, and a whole lotta fun, The Mexican could get by on star power alone, but it offers Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, and a clever plot full of delightful surprises. It's a thoroughly enjoyable shaggy-dog story in which the downtrodden Jerry Welbach (Pitt) copes with a dual dilemma: his girlfriend Samantha (Roberts) has just dumped him to pursue solo ambitions in Las Vegas, and a manipulative mobster has ordered Jerry to Mexico to retrieve a coveted antique pistol (the "Mexican" of the title) that carries a legacy of legend, death, and danger. Jerry soon has his hands full with bandits, bloodshed, and a grizzly hound dog that vanishes and reappears with amusing regularity. En route to Vegas, Samantha's taken hostage by a burly assassin (James Gandolfini) who's attached to the gun-fetching scheme and is, in more ways than one, not who he seems to be.

Like a good magic act, J.H. Wyman's original screenplay distracts you from its gaps of logic, using unexpected revelations to fuel its strategic vitality. It also provides a wealth of character development, and director Gore Verbinski (Mouse Hunt) gives his stellar cast equal time to shine. It hardly matters that Pitt and Roberts spend most of the film apart; their time together is worth waiting for, and the machinations that separate them play out like a cross between vintage Peckinpah and Romancing the Stone. And why is the accursed pistola so valuable? That's just another surprise, setting the stage for the arrival of yet another big-name star, whose motivations are pure in a film full of double-crosses and darkly shaded humor. With a giddy plot like this, star power is just icing on the cake. --Jeff Shannon

12 Monkeys

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Inspired by Chris Marker's acclaimed short film La Jetée (which is included on the DVD Short 2: Dreams), 12 Monkeys combines intricate, intelligent storytelling with the uniquely imaginative vision of director Terry Gilliam. The story opens in the wintry wasteland of the year 2035, where a virulent plague has forced humans to live in a squalid, oppressively regimented underground. Bruce Willis plays a societal outcast who is given the opportunity to erase his criminal record by "volunteering" to time-travel into the past to obtain a pure sample of the deadly virus that will help future scientists to develop a cure. But in bouncing from 1918 to the early and mid-1990s, he undergoes an ordeal that forces him to question his own perceptions of reality. Caught between the dangers of the past and the devastation of the future, he encounters a psychiatrist (Madeleine Stowe) who is initially convinced he's insane, and a wacky mental patient (Brad Pitt in a twitchy Oscar-nominated role) with links to a radical group that may have unleashed the deadly virus. Equal parts mystery, tragedy, psychological thriller, and apocalyptic drama, 12 Monkeys ranks as one of the best science fiction films of the '90s, boosted by Gilliam's visual ingenuity and one of the finest performances of Willis's career. --Jeff Shannon

Legends of the Fall

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A box-office hit when released in 1994, this sprawling, frequently overwrought familial melodrama may get sillier as its plot progresses, but it's the kind of lusty, character-based epic that Hollywood should attempt more often. It's also an unabashedly flattering star vehicle for Brad Pitt as Tristan--the rebellious middle son of a fiercely independent Montana rancher and military veteran (Anthony Hopkins)--who is routinely at odds with his more responsible older brother, Alfred (Aidan Quinn), and younger brother, Samuel (Henry Thomas). From the battlefields of World War I to his adventures as an oceangoing sailor, Tristan's life is full of personal torment, especially when he returns to Montana and finds himself competing with Alfred over Samuel's beautiful widow (Julia Ormond), whose passion for Tristan disrupts the already turbulent Ludlow clan. Under the wide-open canopy of Big Sky country, this operatic tale unfolds with all the bloodlust, tragedy, and scenery-chewing performances you'd expect to find in a hokey bestselling novel (in fact, it's based on the acclaimed novella by Jim Harrison), but it's a potent mix that's highly entertaining. Not surprisingly, John Toll won an Academy Award for his breathtaking outdoor cinematography. --Jeff Shannon

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Ocean's Twelve & Thirteen

Troy

Thelma & Louise