American History X (1998)

Directed by: Tony Kaye

Starring: Edward Norton

At one time, American History X easily cracked my top five favorite films of all time. Having seen many films since and now have watched it again I still consider it a very good movie, but not nearly a top five, ten or maybe even twenty.

Edward Norton stars as Derek Vinyard, a rehabilitated white supremacist trying to save his younger brother Danny (Edward Furlong) from following in his footsteps. Norton is great throughout but not nearly as great as I remembered. There are certain scenes where he shines brilliantly and is clearly deserving of his Oscar nomination but then there are others where I feel like he falls short of carrying scene. I'm not sure if it was over acting in some cases or underacting. Either way, it was somewhat disappointing not to see the performance I had once held up so high.

On the other side of things, as I watched this film again, I noticed some of the other performances. Edward Furlong was great throughout. I saw an innocence in him that whether or not it was intentional worked incredibly. He really summed up his character and made him so sympathetic. Elsewhere, Avery Brooks was fantastic as was Stacey Keach.

There is a glaring contradiction that exists, particularly at the beginning of the movie but resonates throughout. The film does at times come off as preachy, never in the sense that we should feel overwhelmed but its important to realize that its not telling us that racism is good, despite how well Derek articulates it. So when we sit and watch him argue with Elliot Gould over the Rodney King case, we recognize that while his argument is impressive, its flawed. We can't possibly side with him or his cause. Well earlier in the film, the white guys beat the black guys in a basketball game on a game winning dunk by Derek, followed by triumphant music, slow motion, cheering and everyone's happy. Life is good because the black people are gone! Not exactly consistent with the message of the film.

***1/2