Among the stories told about Mickey Mantle when the baseball legend died four years ago was the rumor that he and a group of buddies would run around naked in the woods on a hunting reserve. This activity would allow the guys to rediscover their manhood, beaten down by the norms of the modern workplace.

A similar pursuit takes place in Fight Club, an ambitious but flawed film. Edward Norton plays the nameless narrator stuck in a make-work office job for an automobile company. What little pleasure he derives in life comes from ordering furniture for his high-rise apartment, an obvious commentary about life in a consumer-driven society. Hating his life, he can’t sleep at night.

Following a doctor’s advice, the narrator attends a support group meeting at night. Posing as a victim of testicular cancer, he finds out that he can sleep after having a good cry in the arms of a real victim. Soon the narrator is visiting support groups all over town and sleeping like a baby. That sleep is short-lived, however, when he discovers that Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) attends the same meetings. She plays an integral role in the movie later on.

The narrator’s life really changes when he meets soap salesman Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Returning from a business trip, the narrator finds that his apartment has been blown to bits. With no place to go, he moves into Tyler’s ramshackle house.

Finding a bond between them, Tyler and the narrator organize the "Fight Club," an underground group in which male members meet to regain their suppressed manhood by brutally punching the bejabbers out of each other. Tyler, a psychotic anarchist who reminds me of Alex, the hero of A Clockwork Orange, goes further by sending the members out on urban sabotage missions while organizing fight clubs in other cities.

The target audience for Fight Club is males between the ages of 17 to 30 who enjoy the violence. The cinematography is first rate. While most of Fight Club is thought provoking and amusing, the conclusion turns out to be a major disappointment.