warren oates wrote:Well, I don't mean to be a dick about it, but you've told us you think the ending sucks and it doesn't work. Many of us have disagreed -- but in detail -- explaining specifically how it does work for us. Have you thought at all about how you would do it differently? What, in your mind, should happen to the Douglas character so as to make it a more effective and affecting film and a more satisfying thriller? If there's a stronger ending out there, I really want to hear it.
I always thought that the stock complaint (and cetainly mine) about the ending wasn't about its thematic resonance or message or anything - it is what it is - but about its absurd defiance of logic.
So, the guys setting Douglas up not only can predict that he's going to throw himself off the roof, but they can predict the exact spot from which he's going to throw himself? Yeah, right. I guess one of those expert psychologists devising all this was a wizard.
For me, this film,
Seven and
Fight Club are all besotted with twists that simply aren't believable within the world of the film, and for all their panache, this really harms their rewatchability.
In Seven, we're expected to swallow a serial killer so obsessive and meticulous that he sets up some of his careful series of thematic murders up to a year ahead but who is happy to vamp the last couple, which he could only have conceived after the investigation had begun.
In Fight Club, we have a gang of thugs / followers who blindly follow a guy when he's adopting one of his split personalities, but ignore him when he's adopting another - and yet never seen to worry that their fearless leader might be mentally unstable. This is the kind of conceit that might sidle past on the page but is really hard to overcome when you've got real people on the screen trying to sell it.
EDIT: I see some other people have made the same point. And I have to say that I don't see anything 'post-modern' about lazy plotting. This stuff is the fabric of modern filmmaking and I don't see why Fincher should get a free pass for it because you like his art direction.