 Which terms describe how the reviewers compare Brad Pitt's performance to Hilary Swank's, respectively?
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. 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. But onscreen, when Pitt announces to the assembled fighters that they are the "middle children of history" with "no purpose and no place"--emasculated on one hand by the lack of a unifying crisis (a world war or depression) and on the other by lack of material wealth as promised by television--he seems meant to be intoning gospel. Somehow Brad Pitt doesn't have the same piquancy.
 Conceited / Captivating
 Irritating / Courageous  Facetious / Naive  Disjointed / Measured  Conceited / Captivating