 Which terms describe how the reviewers compare Brad Pitt's performance to Hilary Swank's, respectively?
He's going to tell you, breezily, and the director, David Fincher, is going to illustrate his narrative--violently. Fincher ( Seven , 1995; The Game , 1997) is out to bombard you with so much feverish imagery that you have no choice but to succumb to the movie's reeling, punch-drunk worldview. By the end, you might feel as if you, too, have a mouthful of blood. Fight Club careers from one resonant satirical idea to the next without quite deciding whether its characters are full of crap or are Gen X prophets. Jack and Bob subscribe to a new form of male bonding: They cling to each other and sob. On a plane, he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a cryptic hipster with a penchant for subversive acts both large (he makes high-priced soaps from liposuctioned human fat) and small (he splices frames from porn flicks into kiddie movies). Tyler's manifesto calls for an end to consumerism ("Things you own end up owning you"), and since society is going down ("Martha Stewart is polishing brass on the Titanic "), the only creative outlet left is annihilation. Fincher and his screenwriter, Jim Uhls, seem to think they've broken new ground in Fight Club , that their metaphor for our discontents hits harder than anyone else's. Yes, the mixture of Johnny Rotten, Jake La Motta, and Jesus is unique; and the Faludi-esque emasculation themes are more explicit.
 Conceited / Captivating
 Irritating / Courageous  Facetious / Naive  Disjointed / Measured  Conceited / Captivating