David Fincher seemed to me for a long time to be one of the most promising Hollywood filmmakers, for his courage and lucidity. Then I was made, which usually happens, a director who folds to the conveniences of the market. "Seven" still seems to me to be a first-rate production, his most successful film to date, both in terms of subject matter and narrative. It's true that The Fighting Club is presented to us as a realization that, under its apparent approval of a nihilistic life, exerts a harsh criticism of the generation, let's call it "postmodern" in one of its extremes: gratuitous and masochistic violence, bordering on narcissism (in this sense, it resembles "Crash* of another David, Cronenberg, made three years before Fincher's film) and the society that feeds it.
But there is a previous film, between Seven and The Fighting Club that I found extremely interesting, although also a box-office failure like TFC; its title The Game. I haven't seen it again (it's a pending task). So, I considered it a very intelligent film, with a very uncomplacent plot and narrative proposal, with some metafictionality.
Thank you for your good critical review of this important contemporary film, @ladyrebecca.