An unimpressive family drama which fails to deliver

Rating: 5/10 (16 July 2018)

This is a bland story of a white supremacist and his transformation following his jail term. Despite all the hype and awards, I fail to see anything special about the movie. At times, Derek's long boring monologues almost put me asleep. Take the scene, for example, including the jewish history teacher at family dinner table. On the surface, there's tension and drama but the whole subplot is kept so long with a stale and contrived dialogue that the tension can't be sustained and the audience is tired. Derek's transform from an effervescent skinhead to a contrite preacher also looks very cliche and cheesy. A laundry boy's unilateral clownish acts towards an obnoxious working partner eventually warms up Neo-Nazi's heart and he repents of his past. Besides that some things don't add up at all. While Derek disapproves of his neo-nazi prison gang's dealings with hispanics, he is punished by the gang because he plays basketball with black inmates. Later, when he refuses to join the gang and chooses solitude in prison, the gang which were initially brutal towards him simply let him go. The female characters of the family are poorly developed and shown weak and subdued. The mother is totally indifferent to her sons' street activities. Their room is decorated with swastika flags and all sorts of white supremacist trash, which screams trouble but all she does is to smoke and cough in her bedroom. When the younger one follows the footsteps of the older sibling in prison, she then remembers to ask for help. Why doesn't she act before? Towards the end of the movie, it turns out the racism runs deep in the family starting with the slain dad. But that thread is not followed further. Ed Norton's acting is in general good but far from Oscar worthy. All in all, this is an ordinary crime story and family drama with gazillions of clones produced as tv series or dvd bin movies.