Too superficial

Rating: 6/10 (18 May 2006)

Nazism, fascism or neo-Nazism and neo-fascism got multiple causes. Besides the individual personal psychological ones that turn a human being into a Nazi or a Fascist there are the collective social, economic and political ones which give birth to the movements where the individuals integrate themselves. Without the latter causes the former will be socially ineffective. Therefore the racial problem in USA cannot be treated with this simplicity because it's much more complex than what is shown in this movie. This movie is more about personal motives that make one to become a neo-Nazi even if they assume a form of a certain interpretation of social and economic realities usually a wrong one. It doesn't say practically anything about what is most important i. e. the roots of racism as a global social phenomenon. Without it you cannot understand this question. Of course you can tell me now that the movie doesn't intend to be a sociological treatise and just only to tell us a certain story. Well that may be true but then the movie is worth what it's worth regarding the theme of racism that is subjacent to it. This is undoubtedly an honest movie that tells us the credible story of a young neo-Nazi who repents himself of that, after having been in jail convicted for racial homicide and then tries to prevent his younger brother to follow the same path. But the story is told in a too superficial and not very deep way. It doesn't touch the core of the racial question. In respect to that we have only the discussion at the family table in the first part of the movie among the family members including the Jewish boyfriend of the young man's mother, which discussion ends in a bad way. The rest of the movie loses itself, besides the inevitable violent scenes, in some somewhat ingenuous sentimental ones, lacking intensity. In sum this is a sincere and just movie but not particularly remarkable.