It’s been 20 years since David Fincher’s ultra-stylized “Fight Club” invited audiences to join its cult of shallow, stifled, macho insecurity, but times have changed. “Fight Club” was a warning shot, offering a vision of the near future in which toxic masculinity eventually formed a cult of personality and become indistinguishable from a terrorist organization. And it’s that world in which Riley Stearns’ similar but fiercely satisfying “The Art of Self-Defense” resides.
“The Art of Self-Defense” abandons the superficial artifice of pop brainwashing and instead portrays the world as it too often feels: lonely, muted, and completely devoid of purpose.