American History X is a violent film on a momentous topic.
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One can readily see why Edward Norton received an Academy Award nomination for his role as a young neo-Nazi skinhead in "American History X." His performance is riveting, gutsy, crackling with pent-up tensions, yet singularly compassionate, too. The film itself is a brutal look at race hatred in our modern world, and it deserves consideration on DVD. Yet I wonder about its repeatability factor. DVD is still an expensive new medium, and despite the importance of the film, I´m not sure I would want to watch it more than once.
Norton reportedly had a hand in reworking the script, which may explain why he´s the best part about it. He plays Derek Vinyard, a young man lured to the dark side of his nature after his father, a fireman, is killed by a black man. Doing the luring is a thoroughly despicable character named Cameron Alexander, played by Stacy Keach, a villain who enlists alienated, disillusioned youths into his white supremacy group. Then he stands away and manipulates them into doing his bidding, never himself taking an active hand in the corrupt activities he orchestrates. Derek´s past is told in black-and-white flashbacks, how he kills two black intruders on his property and is sent to prison, how his several years in jail change him for the better, and how upon his release he tries to steer his younger brother Danny, played by Edward Furlong ("Pecker"), away from racist gang life and away from Alexander in particular.
The film tries to deal with social issues as honestly as possible. Racism is a serious problem. Racist organizations like the one depicted in the film exist in seriously large numbers. People get caught up in racial hatred. Violence results. And, yes, people do change. But it´s that last item that concerns me. All of the characterizations seem distanced and one-sided. As most filmmakers do, director Tony Kaye and writer David McKenna stack the deck to make their case. We get a pretty good idea of why Derek becomes so enraged against blacks. We are shown that his father was racist to begin with, and a father´s violent death could be the turning point for any impressionable youth. But for a man so steeped in hatred as Derek is, could a few years in prison, where he experiences fellow whites betraying one another and a black man befriending him, change him so radically that he suddenly wants no more part of racism? It´s an idealistic sentiment and probably such drastic turnabouts do occur, but I wasn´t convinced by the film´s portrayal of it.
Additionally, like Derek´s sudden change of heart, many of the other characters are presented as simply all good or all bad. Dr. Sweeny, the school principal played by Avery Brooks, is all good--a black man of impeccable courage and conviction. The younger brother is all bad, totally submerged in Alexander´s movement. Murray, Derek´s mother´s boyfriend played by Elliott Gould, is all good--a mushy Jewish liberal who says entirely the right things but has no backbone to pursue them. And, of course, Alexander is all bad--bad to the quick, evil incarnate. This makes for strong dramatic action, but it doesn´t necessarily add up to realistic human emotion.
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[release]1808[/release]