'Fight Club' review: Substanceless film is neither intriguing nor engaging
Tamil action film Fight Club, released theatrically in December 2023, made its OTT debut on Disney+ Hotstar on Saturday. Directed by Abbas A Rahmath (in his directorial debut) and starring Vijay Kumar, Kaarthekeyan Santhanam, and Avinash Raghudevan, it has been produced by Lokesh Kanagaraj. Fight Club is a drab, insipid, flavorless film from beginning to end and provides no reason to root for it.
This is what happens in 'Fight Club'
The extremely wayward and forever meandering film focuses on Selva (Kumar), a football prodigy trained by Benjamin, a local coach who works toward societal welfare. However, one day, Benjamin is murdered in cold blood, seemingly by his brother Joseph, who is then convicted for it. After a few years, Joseph is released, and he ties with Selva to exact revenge on Benjamin's "real" killer.
Devoid of any color or vitality
Watching Fight Club brought back memories of Mumbaikar, another lackluster film that employed several actors and then sacrificed all of them on the altar of shineless storytelling. Almost every scene in Fight Club features more faces than you can count. But that doesn't mean it translates to an engaging, intense conversation; mostly, it's the characters speaking almost the same lines over and over again.
Focuses on violence and gore, but forgets story completely
Fight Club takes its title too seriously, and so every second scene teems with violence. It's so impatient and eager to put fights in the foreground that it completely forgets to lend the same attention to the narrative and the story. So, more often than not, Fight Club appears to be a broken, annoying record. Ambitious? Perhaps. Enjoyable? Not even in the slightest.
How much violence is too much violence?
At one juncture halfway through the film, a character says, "Everything here [in the neighborhood] is based on violence." This, then, becomes the very basis of the entire film, too, and all of it plays by the same design—a few dialogues followed by people breaking bones in a playground, during an election rally, and on the road. The film never establishes itself concretely anywhere.
Whatever the story is, it's not presented properly
Another problem with this purposeless, directionless film is how confusing and bloated the narrative is. It is expired and predictable as it is, and then it further ties itself in knots with an unnecessarily confusing presentation. There's a lack of coherence and an even more shocking lack of female representation in the film. Adrenaline runs high here, but the entertainment value nosedives.
It's eventually exhausting, enervating watch
The only few appreciable aspects of Fight Club are its play with light and shadows, Kumar's consistent performance, and a cheeky reference to Chennai Super Kings. But, of course, they aren't enough to pull you into the film. I would have preferred fewer slow-motion shots and more conversations between the characters, but unfortunately, FC is too complacent with its own mediocrity. Verdict: 1.5/5 stars.
